No, he's not screwed at all.
LEAVE VISTA ON THE LAPTOP as the host OS. USE its drivers for the laptop hardware (video, etc.).
But DON'T WORK IN VISTA.
Install VMware on Vista. Run XP in a VM. Work in XP.
You won't even know you have Vista on the laptop except when you boot cold.
Except for when Vista won’t work with your old accessories.... or asks for an update... or pops up the UAC when the VM wants something.
And we’ve experimented with this at work. Brand new Dell Vostro 1500 running Vista Biz - the computer is 25% slower running XP as a VM under Vista than it is running XP natively.
Care to explain that?