I agree with nringdahl.
What brought me to MapPoint was actually a subcontracting job for housing associations. Only proof of concept stuff and we haven't developed it further (yet).
The attraction of MapPoint was that it came with maps. We were looking at creating a complimentary product for the bargain-basement end of the market to sell alongside the company's housing GIS system.
They could easily drop the price of their GIS (and multiple licenses tended to be very cheap), but users had to pay huge sums for the maps from the national mapping agency concerned.
If you want to use your own maps, use something like MapInfo or ArcView.
Depending on what you want to do exactly, and you're happy with MapPoint's maps then go ahead try MapPoint.
Although low-end, MapPoint does have a programming interface and there are many people here who can help you (or do the programming work for you
).
Richard