Well, I had upgraded from XP to Vista Ultimate, which gave me ultimate headaches. Microsoft really dropped the ball on Vista, hence the rush to get Windows 7 out. I am now running the Windows 7 beta, which to my pleasant surprise.....works. And it actually fixed things that Vista screwed up. The bootup time is lightning fast.
So I think Windows 7 is Microsoft's apology for Vista. I'm still considering the switch to a Mac when this PC finally takes a dump.