Vista got better right around the time W7 was released anyway, right? Both in terms of the OS itself as well as better support from third parties. I've always thought that W7, while a great operating system in its own right, also benefited from Vista acting as a sort of beta test for all the new shit they added like UAC and better separation of concerns. FWIW I had a Vista machine from a few months after release until W7 came out and I liked it well enough to consider it at least an improvement on XP.