You’ve got it. Most bad Vista experiences seem to come down to inadequate hardware. Give it 2GB RAM, a processor with a decent L2 cache and a good graphics card (less than $100 gets you enough bang for the buck) and it runs just fine.
Also, a lot of the gripes I’ve seen come down to, “It’s different.”
I’ve been running my office on Vista Ultimate and Office 2007 for a while now. Works just fine.
In fairnes to Vista (grudgingly) I have seen quite a few problems with Toshiba Laptops sold by places like Best Buy, etc. that had FAR insufficient resources to run Vista. The machines barely booted. In one case, there was 512 Megs of RAM. I happen to like the Toshiba laptops, and we have a couple..it was not the computer, it was not the OS..it was the retailer's Special Great Deal.
In all cases, the computers were returned, and the people demanded XP or a refund. They got the refund because the "McDonald's" employees could not possibly have downgraded them, even if MS' license agreementss allowed it.