The amount of time I waste navigating between all the office documents, half-typed emails, and other windows I have open dwarfs whatever time I waste waiting for office apps to respond. (Except for Outlook maybe - which has the zip of a three ton turd.) If Windows 7 can improve window navigation it will be a net win for me, assuming my work machine gets upgraded.

That's not entirely accurate. Dan Lyons went on to become Fake Steve Jobs and you could argue he's more famous now than then.

To be fair XPs install base is much larger than 2Ks so the XP comparison is more relavant. The comparison with 2K would be more fun because the guys I know who are stuck on 2K like a good argument. ;)

There was one set of benchmarks that showed no improvement: http://www.infoworld.com/article/08/11/10/46TC-windows-7_1.html/. There was another set of benchmarks done on a later build that showed improvements: http://blogs.zdnet.com/hardware/?p=3182&page=1/.

Cynicism, conspiracy and an ad hominem attacks all in one. You're going all the way to +5 insightful!

Marketshare is clearly a factor but, like all things, it's much more likely to be a combination of factors. Ease of attack surely comes into the equation somewhere.

If you're in the Stallman camp then stop reading now, because your rights (and your freedom) are more important than anything. If you've read this far, then you're asking the wrong question. If you've written software as part of some university research project, then you need to ask the question: is making a fuss about this worth my time and effort? Unless you're working on the next Google, the answer is probably going to be "no". If you're a pragmatist, you're probably net better of writing it off as a learning experience and moving onto something else. University research projects almost always amount to nothing.