Certainly, my preference is to move forward albeit that early entry involves risks.

I moved up to 1MB of RAM with XP to accommodate Dragon Naturally Speaking which I use extensively when I'm not in an open plan environment.

Why have people until recently learned Morse code when they can speak? Why do people learn to touch type when they can speak to their computer? It reminds me of those Cadbury's aliens who laugh at the human habit of mashing potatoes.

Speech recognition (incorporated into Vista) needs a lot of memory and this is the cost of moving forward. If Microsoft has spent $20 bn on development then surely there must be something there that is of value. There will, of course, be the garden shed people who believe that they can do a better job than MS for $20k.