vanna wrote:
One example situation is when you want to do deep copy instead of shallow copy or vice versa. (if you recall, reference type assigment creates a shallow copy while value type assigment creates a deep copy)

An interesting thought is why is it called "Boxing" - I was wondering if it is boxing in the sense of fighting?? Now I found out that it is boxing in the sense of placing something in a box. for example, if I convert a value type to a reference type the MSIL code emitted by the compiler will place the value type inside a refernce type box, but very well knows that the actual object contained within it is a value type. Unboxing is able to determine the underlying reference/value type, and resurrects back the correct type.