Is there any reason to set all local objects to Nothing at the end of subroutines in VB.NET? My understanding is that they all get GC'd when they fall out of scope and this is simply a LOC++ tactic, ...

Subroutines are usually small in size, which means they are much easier to write, test and debug. They are also easy for someone else to understand. As they are written outside of the main program, ...