there is no payers in the front of the line group. i donate and don't get it any faster. only the admins get it faster and only by a couple of days.
RC2 looks perfect to me and i've placed it into production here at home.
far as vista that DRM and calling home everyday is way too much for me. i really liked XP and it will be the last microsoft product that i use.
right now my home is a mix of XP, pclinuxos and one mac.
any new hardware(often)for me is *unix based.
looks better than the nasty blue bar and green start button. ;)