Are protected members/fields really that bad?

Question

Now if you read the naming conventions in the MSDN for C# you will notice that it states that properties are always preferred over public and protected fields. I have even

Answer 1

I agree with the read-only property answer. But to play devil's advocate here, it really depends on what you're doing. I'll be happy to admit i write code with public members all the time (i also don't comment, follow guidelines, or any of the formalities).

But when i'm at work that's a different story.