I know many schools and companies still using Windows XP, even on new machines. I always scream "UPGRADE" but they always seem to say 'customer support' or something else support. Well, search an alternative manufacturer, complain about their support, or whatever.
I even knew someone who hated 2007 because of the Ribbon interface. Fine, his oppinion. Then I took my internship report to there and wanted to do some work. Oh wait, Word 2003 can only read DOCX, and is horrible in editting it. So far for not upgrading.
Anyway, that aside, when I got Vista it was: slow, a bit buggy but overall more solid than XP. I ran Vista for about a year without those issues. XP would last 4 months max.
Got an SSD and Windows 7. Works better than XP & vista, never looked back. Never had any compatibility issues at home. I got a new PC this month and thought I should format Windows 7. Tried it anways and it booted. Deleted old drivers, got new ones and I was up and running. 30 min job. I remember XP crashing over a graphics card replacement..
New PC has 16GB of RAM. I often use 7GB (in applications) when 'developing'. Allocated 4GB with RAMDISK for temporary files. I can't imagine how that would be at XP 32-bit (3.5GB max).
I also see chrome uses 400MB easily. I got 5 tabs open + 1 youtube video, 600MB RAM use. That's quite significant for older machines! When I play games I typically use 4GB or more too.
I think I wont upgrade to Windows 8. The metro interface looks horrible. Saying a mouse is equal to a finger is just plain wrong. Not even Apple is that stupid.
I tried Visual Studio 2012. Everything looked flat and Windows 3.11 like. I couldn't even distinguish a text file from a C# file by glancing at the icon (mono color icons). Different UI parts are filled up with 1 colour, no borders or seperators. The look&feel is something as I describe: "This is how I (as a programmer) made interfaces in 2005 when I was 15, I considered it as not yet finished".
Their idea of removing the start menu is lunatic. It's like removing your starter motor from your scooter. You can also get it going by running with it..
The improvement of task, file and monitor managers is not necessary. Plenty of free tools available that did it for years. Okay, if they do the same job, I guess that's good..
Don't see myself changing to Linux neither, because I am fond of my games and CAD tools only available on Windows. Running a Virtual machine is like installing Windows on a Mac; you get something really cool but still have to confess (technically a Mac is a fashion item, but let's consider that Linux is cool).