It isn't. XP was when all the "fun" started.
"Fun" is right. Unless you never have a hardware failure; then you're fine.
But, see, in order to avoid the "fun" you pretty much have to become a geek. You have to download instructions for sysprep, if you bought XP early on you have to eitehr download SP2 or get the CD from Microsoft, you have to slipstream the SP2 files in with the XP files so that when you do the system repair you don't have to redo the SP2 upgrade...
Does all of this seem like just a LITTLE, TEENY bit of an EXTREME expectation to make of an end-user? I mean, is it JUST ME, or does everyone else in the world ALSO assume that end users are all tech-savvy enough to tackle all of that? Yeah, we all have our own copy of Ghost 8.0. Sure we know what Windows PE is; we've even got our own copies of WinPE on CD so we can boot from CD and do diagnostics and repair on our computers.
[In my best 'Bill Cosby'] RIGHT!
Windows XP needs to come with a "SURGEON GENERAL'S WARNING" about high blood pressure.