I see the same pattern in some multinationals for which I work (as IT support, sigh). Probably a simple web application can resolve much of their problems, but the real problem is that no developer are involved in the process of designing and making of this "commodity reports" (in fact, that I know, there aren't any fulltime developer in the company). So simple programming problems are overlooked by untrained people and that is the primary source of lots of problems. And yes, from a support point of view, users keep saying "That's a Microsoft Office file, why couldn't you support it?". Are we working for the same company? :P

And XP is slower than 2k.

Personally, I've seen PCs with Win2k being really slow, then upgrading them to XP (SP2) and then going a lot faster. I'm talking about old machines, 256MB of memory or not more.

Why choose XP over Vista, then? First, no useless graphic effects. Please, don't say you want 300MB of your RAM wasted for Aero, when you could use them when they are required by applications. Second: with a machine that barely supports Vista (3.5 points and down), you have a very efficient XP machine. Third: hours to copy a DVD with Vista, when you could copy it in some minutes in XP? Also, the support for audio devices is better in XP now than in Vista (and Windows 7 also). Fourth: stability and longevity. No other words needed on this point.