I much prefer XP. My old laptop that is broken is XP. My newish laptop is Vista and is a pain in the bum. I have issues with pretty much everthing I have loaded on it, as with most people I have 'old' software that needs to be upgraded with Vista drivers, this is really annoying!
I should have my old lappy repaired next week and I cant wait to be honest.
I am considering buying another laptop just purely for my photography stuff, if I do I will certainly go out and look for an XP Laptop.
I see Microsoft says the'll drop XP next year, so I suppose I'll have to accept the inevitable and go Vista.
It shouldn't matter if they drop XP. Millions of people use XP and will do for years too. It shouldn't have an effect on anyone really except all new computers will have Vista and new software will be released with suport for Vista instead of trawling around the internet looking for updates....