Hi Don,
looks like a reasonable scheme to me. I may agree that serial comm could be easier when you begin as it's already built-in in VB.

However, if you want to do some USB learning, i would suggest you those 2 bellow.

USBDemo, something to learn USB a little bit
http://www.picbasic.co.uk/forum/showthread.php?t=5418

Using EasyHID with VBExpress 2005 (maybe .NET as well)
http://www.picbasic.co.uk/forum/showthread.php?t=6463&