Would a big contributor to that stability be the fact that those machines were running standardized HP/Compaq/Dell clones that had ultra-safe 'enterprise' components? Remember that Microsoft's first, and, essentially, only, client is the corporate client, not home users, so it's no big surprise you'll get ultra reliability under those circumstances. Microsoft listens to home users of Windows the same way that Apple listens to users of iTunes for Windows.

This has always been true of Windows, and is the core reason behind all the 'lite' releases and tools. 98 vs 98 lite, XP vs XP lite... the performance and stability gains were outstanding. The Windows kernel team is comprised of some seriously unsung heroes, ordered to vastly improve performance which the end user never sees because of some stupid UI gimmick tacked on to make the sheep believe a 0.1 version increase was worthy of a name change and a new bill.

... who really cares? Why should this twitch anyone's eyebrow, nevermind be deemed newsworthy? It may have been amusing when they first started, but now?

... where Microsoft seems to have progressively gone out of their way to deliberately obscure elements in the GUI since Windows 98. It is now such a chore that the search feature in the start menu and in control panel is a REQUIREMENT for most users. How many of you know where to change the DPI in Windows 7? You can add to that their guidelines promoting the criminal waste of screen real estate (nVidia drivers, 800x600 window, one checkbox in the middle?!).

The consequences will never be the same!

Get a haircut, get groomed. Go to a bar, get drunk, then go clubbing. Your drunk self will take care of the rest.