I think everyone using Windows OS's has their own opinion on what they think is best. I can understand XP users who feel safe & secure using a OS that they understand and can rely on to continue carrying out different functions. They are perhaps on a low budget and do not want to risk having to upgrade their hardware to accomodate Vista. Quite naturally these people use the adverse publicity and negative comments from others who have had difficulties in upgrading to vista to convince themselves that they are better with XP.
Similarly those amongst us who have went with Vista would not be likely to admit to having made a mistake in taken the plunge. So you have to look at the merits of both opinions and decide what is best for yourself.
Me, I went for the best of both worlds. I am lucky enough to be running Vista Ultimate on my desktop and XP on my laptop. Basically there are certain applications that run better on one OS than the other. I can agree with both camps on certain points but not with one camp on all points.
My preference, well I found the lure of a new OS too much to ignore and was willing to work through any hardware & software "glitches" that faced me. However I did find that I preferred certain applications to be running on XP mainly because I subscribe to the thought "if it ain't broke, don't fix it"

There end'th my first novel !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!