Not a MS fan but...
Let us agree that Vista utterly failed to live up to expectations and suffered from elephantiasis, OK? Right, glad we got that over with. Now let us further discuss this idiotic comparing of XP (with SP1, 2 and 3 PLUS a shitload of patches etc.) with the straight from release version of Win 7.
XP BEFORE SP1 was an abortion, yes you heard me, an abortion. Many appear to have a very selective memory with regard to what XP was like when it first came out! I have XP Pro, Vista and a newly installed Win 7 running at home at I can honestly say that it is the first time ever that the "right out of the box feeling" with a NEW operating system was as it should be. In fact I installed it dual-boot on the same machine thats running XP and can make a very direct comparision. It is a FAR better OS straight from the box without service packs than XP is with three of the f-----kers! It just installed, talked to all my hardware without exception and is significantly faster than a clean install of XP (SP1,2 and 3) and MUCH less clunky (of course) than a clean install of Vista (SP1). Vista will soon be history (thank God) and I will be installing Win 7 on that machine as well. I'll keep XP as the secondary OS back of Win 7 on the portable just in case I get any programme compatibility issues. Other than that Win 7 is, so far, a pleasure to use. MS are still taking the piss with their prices though, big time. THAT I entirely agree with.