WAYYYYY Long winded! and I think you need PRO VS2008 to get C++ forms... I was told this is not the case with C# though... (Was told I was wrong actually) So I suppose I could be wrong here too.
I think we need a system like the Irrlicht GUI!
It's like using OldSchool Visual Basic... but on your Game Screen! Drag, draw, drop controls, etc.
Then you make em transparent or whatever, the mouse works... just works... We something like that... that just works!
there is a free one... but its windows outside kinda... so a full screen DarkGDK app - well... You out of luck I'm pretty sure.
I'm considering writing my own due to this quandry.... but having been coding as long as I have and having written a few already in various flavors of operating system and languages... I'm not under the delusion that - Oh that's easy - CRANK it out over the weekend LOL. (Never gonna happen like that...and be anygood)