Please provide a list of resources (5 good ones) that highlight the
important issues when considering the benefits and costs of converting
an application from Visual Basic to C++ and indicate a methodology for
making that judgement.

Look at Delphi
- it is Pascal with bells and whistles
- interestingly Pascal pre-dates 'C'
- yet it is strongly typed, unlike 'C' which is a tart

Realistically, if your application works in VB then there are not many
advantages in re-writing it in another language.
You could move bits of it off into non AX DLLs, simply to gain speed.

If the problem is 'DLL Hell' then the chances are that you would
benefit from cutting out 3rd party components.

If the problem is 'strangulated code' ie: it is just a mess of API
calls, then you could almost certainly sort that out without a
complete re-write.

Empirically I have seen productive programmers who used a combination
of BASIC and ASM, turn into sloths with 'C'. Not their fault, it is
just slow picking your way through a minefield.

If you are concerned about 'image' (ie: what idiot customers think)
then you could go for Java or C# - but only if you are delivering
'corporate' applications.

It would be interesting to know more about the real problem.

Hi sir if you would be open to Delphi then I can implement whatever
you need converted for you.