By the way, to add to that:
My WinXP starts up about as fast as Slackware install (which is even not as bloated as other distros), and after some tweaking my XP works like a charm. The only that that I REALLY miss is multi-desktop
Before shitting on XP try to speed-tweak it.. you'd be amazed with the results... it's pretty stable too if you don't use IE/Outlook/other junk
(but M$ still sucks
)