I too have bought a new 'bells and whistles' desk top running XP. I am on my third windows installation in ten days of ownership thanks to incompatability issues from games that won't run, programs that cause complications, to hardware that crashes XP.
Frankly it seems to me that if your game/hardware was great with Win 95, worked OK with 98/ME then it will be hit and miss with XP. A friend bought nine games with his new 'puter. All of them were 95/98 compatible, only one ran smoothly. One other caused a system crash and the others woudn't install either from the autostart or clicking setup.exe.
WinXp to me is buisiness application that has been turned into a home users system to suit Microshaft. My local Chinese computer shop also sates that XP will allow MS far more access to the contents of your hard drive than older systems thus the great enthusiasm to sell it cheaply to all computer maufacturers.
Frankly, unless your stuck with it don't upgrade for six months yet.