Welcome! Other than the trudging through Java part (admittedly, Eclipse pretty much stopped me in my tracks), your story sounds similar to mine when I first discovered B4A back around 6 months ago.
I too was excited about AppInventor (beta) until I actually tried making something with it and quickly realized how very limited it was. I had been thinking for some time that I couldn't believe nobody ever came up with some kind of tool that lets you program in Java (specifically Android) using a VB-like language. I decided to search Google once again and somehow I stumbled on B4A. I'm not sure, but I think there may have been some kind of divine intervention.
Jokes aside, I've just recently finally gotten more serious about trying to make something with B4A and although it has been a bit of an adjusting period coming from VB/VBA, the more I use B4A, the more I appreciate the hard work that Erel has put into it.