Interesting observations Eatup. I am running Vista x64 Ultimate Edition (which by all counts should be slower than Windows 7, or at least it should hog resources more), and my system runs at a brisk speed.
Now I have older (2006) but still capable hardware. It's a dual Xeon HP Workstation, outfitted with SCSI drives. And while I admit that XP 64 Bit Edition ran oh so slightly more responsively than Vista does on it, it wasn't all that noticeable. For example, Control Panel would open a hair quicker on XP, but applications and OS navigational tasks are pretty much just as fast.
Now as for eye candy; you have me there. I run Vista Basic, which is non-Aero (and it likely means I'm taking a performance hit because Aero uses the GPU of my video adapter more efficiently), but I'm not big on transparency really. There are some good Luna and Royale themes for Vista and Windows 7. I wondered if you tried those.
Now I have older (2006) but still capable hardware. It's a dual Xeon HP Workstation, outfitted with SCSI drives. And while I admit that XP 64 Bit Edition ran oh so slightly more responsively than Vista does on it, it wasn't all that noticeable. For example, Control Panel would open a hair quicker on XP, but applications and OS navigational tasks are pretty much just as fast.
Now as for eye candy; you have me there. I run Vista Basic, which is non-Aero (and it likely means I'm taking a performance hit because Aero uses the GPU of my video adapter more efficiently), but I'm not big on transparency really. There are some good Luna and Royale themes for Vista and Windows 7. I wondered if you tried those.