Well when you get it free it is hard not to check it out... I don't have the luxury myself to pick items, but for customers new builds I do, but before I jumped ship I made sure that all drivers on my laptop were compatible with Vista along with the programs I use daily, such as Dreamweaver, Photoshop, 3DS Max 9.0, Maya, MS Office, Smart FTP, all my games etc... they all work, some with a hitch and others with nothing wrong, but than again many of my programs give me issues in XP, so it is nothing new. Being a so called Geek myself as the title says, I don't see the reason not to switch, especially if your building a new PC, I don't see myself telling people to upgrade, but if your starting from fresh slate I would go Vista...

just my opinion...