The people who whine the most about Vista are the ones who care the least about learning how to use it. Vista is NOT XP, big surprise I know but many of it’s detractors were expecting the new OS to be just like the old. Said people would then whine about the percieved lack of new features.
Vista takes a little time to get used to but once you do it’s unlikely you’ll want to go back. Since installing Vista I have only booted into my old WinXP install once, and it’s been over 6 months. There are some things that aren’t compatible with Vista but there none of them I’ve come across so far weren’t already unstable in WinXP anyway.
I recommend Home Premium, Business, or Ultimate. I run Business and love it but then again I’m not much of a home theater person. I prefer big TVs and stereos for that sort of thing.