I had no idea.  In fact, thinking back, there is at least twice in my career that this could have helped... alot.  So thank you jaybaz for showing us. 

You can debug release builds.  All you need is the pdb file.  So next time you change that dropdown to release, make sure to turn on debug info.  You dont have to ship it, but keep that pdb in a very special place.

Check out the details here.