i got beta 1 of vista, its really nothing more than a prettier version of xp, you can use 3rd party stuff to make xp look as good, then theres the longhorn transformation pack.
i like xp better using Nlite/Dreamrender/Themespatch/3d icons
looks better, desktop is animated and with nlite i can remove all the crud.
vista is just more bloated crap
after its official release and they have Nlite for it and i can get dreamrender to work on the dern thing then i'll upgrade