They are facing a bigger problem. Vista is the client for Longhorn (Windows 2008 Server), much like XP was the client for Windows 2003. They are going to have a hard time selling enterprise Admins and CIO's on the benefits of upgrading if they can't get Vista fixed. Would you risk your mission-critical environment on a server O/S whose client can't even run properly?
You are absolutely right, and I am sure Microsofties are beginning to realize that. So much so that they are making a serious U-turn in “throw in everything and a kitchen sink” philosophy of packaging software, and their new 64-bit versions of server (and client/desktop??) software is being severely slimmed down and modularized so as not to overburden the resources (computing as well as human - user/administrator’s)...
At least, that’s what I got from some of their FEs and road shows. They are extremely sensitive about and apprehensive not to repeat the failure (”disaster”, in their own words) of ME, yet Vista in its current shape seems to be “the son of ME” or something like it.