Similar here. I have been looking at laptops and desktops. But, I just do home-use, so I don’t know how much power I need/want. And I fear moving to Win7 will cause a loss of several DOS/early Windows programs I MUST HAVE and which do not have comparable replacements.
I’ve seen some 17” Win7 Pro I-7 laptops for $800+.
I’ve priced a built-to-order destop with similar for about $1000.
Most times, my XP desktop and laptop are okay. However, they do get slow with many of the newer websites.
Check out VMware.
One of my machines has VMware on it and various Windows versions going all the way back to Win 3.1!!!
I have read (but not verified) that using XP video drivers on Win 7 will allow you to run DOS apps full-screen. You'll lose the Aero glass effects, though.