So, as someone who has been a Mac user since before it was fashionable, I greet this kind of stuff with skepticism. I lived through the OS X transition - yeah 10.0. People are all talking about how certain things look off in Vista and how it can be a resource hog, but 10.0 was worse.

10.0 took forever to load on brand new hardware. Want to launch a web browser? Got a minute? Want to minimize that window, please hang on. Everyone on Mac message boards was complaining and many hoped Apple would just go back to the OS 9 codebase. Plus, since Aqua (the OS X interface) had such different dimensions from Platinum (the OS 9 interface), nothing lined up right even if they were native OS X apps. 10.1 helped a bit with the speed issue, but things still didn't look right and Windows XP ran circles around it in most cases.

It was painful. I mean, I have been using Macs since the LC & Quadra days and 10.0 just sucked. But it turns out they were just growing pains. Today, OS X is awesome. I'm amazingly happy with it and its future, but it wasn't so bright a year or two in. 10.3 was really the breakout release IMO and it was 10.4 that started attracting the hackers in droves.

I've used Apple eMates more than I've used Vista so I might just be full of crap, but while most current Mac users were on the sidelines for the OS X 10.0 growing pains, I was in the thick of it and I can say that Vista is a ton better than 10.0 was. Of course, we are nearing the two-year anniversary for Vista and that's about when 10.3 came out. . . Maybe Microsoft isn't able to smooth out the rough edges quickly enough.