No more need to use User Controls to get a Visual Design surface for Web Parts.
"One of the new project templates in Visual Studio 2010 is the Visual Web Part project template, which enables developers to visually design a Web Part that can be deployed to SharePoint. If you're new to SharePoint, this is a great way to get started building custom applications for SharePoint 2010. The visual Web Part I'll demonstrate has some self-contained code that calculates product costs and lists information in a simple Web Part UI." Steve Fox, MSDN