I'm using Vista on my primary gaming (and coding) machine and I love it. Its clean and intuitive. Its shiney and overall nice to use. I could go on.

Of course, I've made a few changes to make my experience better. Like turning off Superfetch, etc. However most users should leave most of these things on because for normal every day tasks, they help alot.

Sure the changes (I read control panel earlier) are annoying but you get used to them very quickly and after thinking about them - they make sense. Maybe not to an IT pro user like most of us but to an idiot user like say my mother, she can do more with Vista then she ever could with XP.

Vista is a fine OS.