Ask some people why Windows Vista failed and they will tell you that most of the problem came from hardware compatibility. I don’t remember ever having problems with Vista back when I used it. Then again I was running it on a brand new computer with the OS in question preinstalled.
And that’s another thing, I think you’re pretty much expected to upgrade your hardware at least every few years. I’d like to think that the people who had problems with Vista kept the same white-box PC they’ve had since 98SE, or even 95. Vista ran great if you had the right hardware. Maybe if Microsoft had optimized their OS even for XP-era machines it would have seen greater adoption.
I also really liked the Aero glass theme, it made younger me feel like I was in the future. Those gadgets at the side of the desktop were pretty cool too. Overall I think it was definitely ahead of its time, and with support for current software and hardware, would have been a solid choice for average computer users today.
When Vista launched, I bought a mid-range XP machine a month before. It came with a free upgrade to vista. I chose to hold off on upgrading having experienced Win 98 and Win ME launches.
My office also replaced my work machine 3 months later with a new cheap vista machine.
The work machine was an absolute disaster. Random crashes, slow, and driver incompatibilities for the first 3 months. After the first service pack and I convinced our IT to upgrade the RAM it stabilized and started working well
Once SP2 rolled out, I upgraded my home machine. I had zero issues with it. It worked seamlessly.
Practically, Windows 7 (no Service Pack) was Windows Vista Service Pack 2 but with an another skin.