That's why I own a PC Engine Duo-R ;)

That was the exact problem. Despite being given plenty of warning, many software developers (applications and drivers) did not adjust to the new environment in time for its release. Couple that phenomenon with weak integrated GPUs that should never have been certified for Vista, and that's that. I've run Vista flawlessly on Athlon XPs on nForce2 chipsets and Socket 478 Pentium 4s on Intel 865 chipsets, so old hardware isn't the issue. Windows 7 is just a stripped-down, modular Vista with a streamlined user interface; the big difference is that drivers and applications are finally up to speed.

Agreed. Reminds me of a salesman we had at this independent Apple Partner where I used to work a number of years ago (I was the PC service manager). He'd promise the moon to customers spending well under $1000 on used machines. Luckily, I was able to deliver enough features by installing various FOSS to keep customers from being too disappointed; they all thought they were getting Symantec security software, MS Office, Photoshop, and hardware upgrades for free after talking to that salesman. The guy was eventually fired when he went too far and we ended up losing money on one particular sale. Anyway, my point is that yeah, this happens all the time, all over the place.