Everyone is entitled to broad opinion

I had an interesting dispute with my colleague weather to use only qualified type names in code or not. He insisted that we should not use the using directive to introduce a namespace but to write the fully qualified name every time it is necessary. I had quite opposite opinion but I agreed to give it a try. So I started to write

public class MyClass
{
    public static void Main()
    {
        System.Console.WriteLine("Foo");
    }
}

instead of

using System;
public class MyClass
{
    public static void Main()
    {
        Console.WriteLine("Foo");
    }
}

Unfortunately over time it proofed no value to me. I was not happy with this rule, but I thought I’ll consult the brother audience for opinion before I start a holly war against something that I might not fully understand.
I decided to give stackoverflow.com a try. It is quite new Q&A Service dedicated specially for software developers. I write my question I was given a flood of answers. Some better, some worse. Some hitting the bottom line, some pouring “divine knowledge” of individuals that think they know things better.
Nevertheless the discussion on stackoverflow.com helped my back my opinion. Give it a try!