That's a key issue, there are important stability and security fixes in XP over previous Microsoft O/S releases, plus many extra useful features and hardware /software support. It comes with plenty of other junk I wish it didn't have, I'd switch back to 2000 for the clean interface if it wasn't for compatability and security issues.
My friend also has Vista, he says it's great because it just works. Great, XP works already though...
Vista doesn't seem to offer much except eating up 15 times more HDD space than XP. Of course all will be revealed when I get around to installing it but I don't have a positive outlook on it.