There is actually a big difference between the two OS's. Vista is open source whereas XP is not, much much more stable than XP more. There are a whole bunch of really cool graphic things that they've done and some cool other extra's. Plus it's better for gaming because of Direct X10.
Oh wait **** sorry, kind of skimmed over your post. Yeah Ultimate is like XP PRO, just some other office features that the average use wont need such as networking and stuff. I would pay $300 for it.
Well, a lot of things are becoming expensive, like consoles and stuff, but besides that, software has ALWAYS been expensive. Go look at some photoshop full retail prices. Like Xbox360, Windows is just setting the new base for their OS's.
Meh, wait for the hardware to catch up to the OS, as well as the security patches and software support. I know that I won't be going with a DX10 card and Vista until this time next year at the earliest ...
People always recommend XP Pro over Home... Why is this, anyways? My friend, who seems highly knowledgeable, says it's free from many bugs and problems of Home and MCE. Is this true?