First, some background on my current machine I just built:

Intel Core 2 Duo Wolfdale, 45nm process, 3.0 Ghz, 6 meg L2, 1333 FSB
Intel X38 chipset based Supermicro motherboard, 6 SATA3, 12 USB 2.0, Firewire, 7.1 audio, etc... etc... etc... +legacy support
2 Gigs Kingston DDR3 1333 RAM
EVGA Nvidia GeForce 8800 GTS (G92) video card with 512 megs of 256 bit GDDR3 ram PCIexpress 2.0 16x SLI ready
700 watt gaming power supply with SLI support (2 video cards)
3 (three) 500 gig Western Digital Caviar SATA 3 drives in removable drive bays.
And of course, a nice big Zalman heatsink and fancy windowed case with lots of glowing fans.

My OS? Win2K Pro.

Although, I am considering adding XP Pro simply because some software I'd like to use requires it.

Vista? Not with a 10 foot pole. Besides the aforementioned drivers issues, it's not much more than XP with fluff, and XP isn't much more than Win2K with fluff. So what's that make Vista? Double fluff. All personal opinion, of course. I simply prefer solid functionality over fancy user interface.

One issue that will make me never use Vista except maybe a hacked version is the digital rights management crap that won't even let you take a piss without getting Daddy Gate's permission. Don't get me wrong, piracy is illegal. But why punish honest users buying legit software and hardware just because some people don't. Think about this - if piracy is such a horrid problem, how is it that Microsoft and Bill Gates are worth the tens of billions of dollars they are? Hmmm? (Again, just personal opinion)

98se was solid. It's just outdated. But I was always a fan of the NT lineage.

Brian