man I have seen a beta for XP in action on a laptop... man it started in about, oh, maybe 1/5 of the time needed (maybe exaggeration, but man that was pretty FAST!)
I worked on a friends XP system once (he wanted an old DOS game to work and his scanner set up, stuff that was easy for me
) It was nice. Plus the guy had a cable modem! Grrr
biggest problem with XP will be that dang activation code (They want to protect their stuff, but still....) For the average joe its no big deal but for power Users who change systems often... big problem