Ok, i think i finally understand the target machine for Microsoft Vista.
It's going to be a laptop produced two to three years after Vista is officially released by Microsoft. No earlier since the various keys and products will still be in flux and vendors may come and go out of business trying to support it. By that point, prices should have stabilized to the point where i'll be paying through the nose for it, but at least i have a fair chance at the box lasting a year.
i am sure as hell not going to install it on any stand-alone platform i have. i'm going to install it on something that is, in effect, a completely sealed environment anyway that is impossible to upgrade and has a known, finite lifespan. Quite possibly with Vista pre-installed and no real hope of getting XP on it anyway.
At whatever point that one or more vendors of content fall out of favor and the machine drops into 800×600, mute fail mode, i'm going to strip it clean and install the distro of the month on the thing and join the rest of humanity.
i'm also figuring that by that time someone will figure out how to re-enable the various kill-switches installed onto the hardware bits so that it can show "Non-High Value" content like the stuff i probably will be watching most of the time anyway.
