I don't think the author does have a point. After using Vista, I think it's the money put behind discovering the the sweetspot, and zeroing on that. Is Vista perfect, no. But is that a reflection of my deviation from the exact center of the sweetspot, or microsofts failure to anticipate users wants and needs. No, I think that they cast a wide and tight net, catch 95% of the fish, and the rest serve everyone else. Which is good, a real and public good, which doesn't seem to be recognized by the article. Vista will win me back from KDE, it already has honestly. I even had occasion to use OS X intensively this week, and it is not for me. But that heterogenious nature of the OS spectrum insures no one has to go unserved. If Vista had been a horrible catastrophe in my eyes, KDE would have continued to serve me well. Failing that, 2k. To be sure there is someone with a MacBook out there thinking "I love OS X, but worst case scenerio, but if I had to settle, Gnome is good enough." Now if me and him were to meet there would jungle rythems and one of us would be Kirk, and the other would be a lizard man in a loincloth. But the fact remains that while Microsoft serves most, likely best, all should be served as they wish, even if it's a cloud of rabbid individuals who demand full control, no matter how byzantine, over their user experience. We are all discreet elements in an appearently continuous spectrum