I would wager a guess and say that maintaining 8 year old legacy code is far less cost-effective than something new.
The end results might not be much better, but they way they write code has surely changed, and an old beast as IE6 probably an utter beast at this point.

And say what you want about the lack of reasonable implementations of CSS and whatnot, developing for IE8 is surely better than IE6. There are of course new quirks and oddities, but the base on which to build is much wider, and with MS having realized that "oh, hey, the world is going kinda web", being restricted by their own legacy code is a really really bad thing. So they push IE8 - they don't want to be held back by themselves.
More and more sites are displaying IE6-warnings. So they push IE8 - they don't want their users to see that what they're using is crap.
Yet other sites are BLOCKING IE6. So they push IE8 - see previous point, and add a couple of bold exclamation marks.

It's all about the bottom line. Less money for maintaining a dying piece of software, more users led to believe they're actually using something good (if they don't see messages about how bad it is on their favorite social networking site or whatnot, how do they know?).

But then again, I'm just pulling guesses out of my ass.

IE doesn't need to get rid of that reputation amongst developers. As long as a majority of the end-users uses IE (hell, one site I worked on recently had more IE6-users that all combined firefox-users), Microsoft doesn't have to care at all, because developers simply have to bend over and make sure it works.

If IE somehow got that reputation among the average joe, on the other hand, then things would probably change.

Microsoft's first consumer-grade antivirus package? Oooh, you must mean MSAV, released once, updated never. The most useless antivirus software in the history of antivirus software.

Those weren't unlocked by a key, were they?
My memory of those days might be foggy, but I seem to recall that the shareware versions simply didn't contain the levels past "Episode 1", but instead had a bunch of nag screens. In order to get the full thing, you had to order it and get it physically delivered, or go buy it at the nearest retail outlet that had it. So no unlock-codes..

Presumably lobbing them at the middle east, while dancing around singing "It's not a nuke, it's not a nuke, you can't do anything, wheeee!"

As a close-to-30 completely uneducated (effective high-school dropout) developer, stick in there and get your masters, easily.
Like people have pointed out, when HR compares a masters with 2 years of work experience, the masters will win.

And if I were in your position, I'd wager that the economic funk we're in is a little less depressing in 2 years. If you're right, two years well spent. If it goes downhill, well, then you'd be pretty much fucked anyway (last in, first out).

Masters and whatnot stop being relevant after a couple of years (it's not like anyone even bothers to ask for my grades anymore, having worked for over 10 years whereof 8 "in the business"), but it'll give you a good head start when you're compared to people like me ;)

Big difference. "You" (as in your average person, and the more than average persons, in fact most people outside of the ones employed in a tight area around the manufacturer) cannot change the OS on your fridge/dishwasher/whattamajig, so it's a bit of a moot point.

If I can't change it, I couldn't care less about what it's running. That's not saying I would care if I could change it, but the unchangeability of it makes complete ignore that factor. There are some lights on my fridge indicating temperature, and buttons for me to change it, it all looks suspiciously analogue to me, so I can't even say that it runs AN os, it could all be hardwired. Which would make upgrades a bitch :p

If it takes two service packs to support something, how does that rhyme with "out of the box"?
I can agree with "Microsoft Office supports ODF with two major patchsets". If it did it OOTB, it would have done so at release - as in, ohidon'tknow - out of the box.

"Now, the word 'unblowupable' is thrown around a lot these days...."

Can't we just create a uuid at birth?
"[..] can reasonably be considered unique among all UUIDs created [...]"

Problem solved. Btw, i'm "534d16af-0e7f-4847-bd96-0b64d73fd8f3", pleased to make your acquaintance.

I have no "Movies" in my iTunes.

Oooooohhhhh, that must be because I'm not part of the world, but of those minor landmasses outside of the borders of the U.S.A.

If I switch iTunes to the american store, I get "Movies", but I sure as hell can't buy anything, because that's not available in the spanish store.
In fact, not even TV-series are available there. I can follow links to the other stores to (for example) the Dr Who-selection they have there, but I sure as hell can't buy anything.

And I bet you that if I _COULD_ buy it, it'd surely be dubbed in spanish, because the languages you speak are apparently defined by the credit cards you currently possess.

(And on the subject of itunes store, the app store is a joke. I can't even get _free_ applications from a store that's not spanish. Which is a shame, since I'm swedish and there are some interesting swedish things I would like, but I can't get them - regardless of them being free apps.)

"I know from my training and experience as both a cyber crime investigator and as a lay person acquainted with online chatting, emailing shopping, and other miscellaneous online activity, people who use computers and regularly go online to various websites, often must eftter information known as "user names", or log-in screen names, as well as passwords, in order to access certain things on their computers and on various online websites."

I, for one, welcome our new experienced cyber crime investigator overlords!

Oh lookie, "sex change".
I fully blame this (freudian?) slip on the wallclock, indicating a time before 10am.

Uhm. Paying for sex in WoW?
Exactly how deeply entrenched in your parents basement would you have to be to do that?