Vista really did suffer out of the box, for all the reasons mentioned above. However, after several months (well, really after SP1) it was quite a good, stable OS. But no one ever heard those news reports and the myth of its atrocity grew and grew, even beyond the time when it was no longer true.

With press such as this, especially with headlines (Rejected!) that will be taken to mean 74% Plan NOT to deploy Windows 8--a far cry from the reality of 24% who feel this way, WIndows 8 may well be on the way to suffering from the same mythology.