Vista worked fine if your expectations were reasonable
When computers were sold with Vista pre-installed, they worked perfectly well. Problems usually cropped up when people tried to upgrade their existing systems from XP to Vista before checking for working drivers. In addition, some folks had unreasonable expectations that their 10 year old SCSI flat bed scanner would work without checking for drivers first (for example).
Even Windows ME worked fine when purchased with a new system. I still have a Dell Dimension 4100 that came with Win ME. It is sitting under my desk as I write this. (I have a hard time throwing computers away.) It never gave me any issues. Why? Because the computer was designed around the OS.