I've been running Vista on two machines , one since the Beta came out for testing. No issues here.
It is a memory hog, and drivers for some hardware and programs are still in need, but as an operating system, at least for me, it works fine.
I do a lot of database management and online gaming(World of Warcraft,COD4,etc). My primary system is an older P4 H/T 3.4 with 2Gigs of mem, it runs fine with Vista Pro, and manages not only the house server, but the router, wireless, and movie/music downloads. I can run as many windows open for work as needed and see no degradation in performance.
Vista suffers from program compatibilities and a lot of hardware drivers that are not as yet written. As with any MS product, and I have been using MS since DOS 3, there are always development bugs. This same 'crucifiction' of Vista occured when XP came out and now with corrections over the years, XP is fairly reliable(Blue Screen of Death anyone?).
Expect Vista to be in that same vein and improve over the coming years. The 64-bit operators I know are loving Vista, and want more programing made available for it.
I concur wholeheartedly. From a Builder/User since 1982, Vista will eventually be as rock solid as any OS ever produced. I built a system for my son a few months back and installed Vista Ultimate 64-Bit. He loves it!! I did use quality parts and made sure it had plenty of power. He has had NO problems and LOVES DirectX 10 3D. I do agree there is always a shock factor that goes with changing your OS. We all heard/had the same complaints with Windows 286, Windows 3.0, Windows 3.1 (remember, you had to buy 3.1 to fix the problems in 3.0), 95, 98, XP. I go back to DOS and Bulletin Boards and will never forget the shock going from DOS to Windows 286. The biggest problems I find are people trying to upgrade their OS and still use VERY old hardware. It is an unavoidable fact when dealing with computers, small to major changes occur every 6 months. If you want to run the latest and greatest software, you will usually have to upgrade hardware also.