Get on the road not the treadmill
I never said everyone who runs Win9x needs to upgrade. I said if it works for you don't fix it, in other words don't upgrade if you don't need to. It's been my personal experience that Win 9x is very unstable. There are other options that I've heardwill be available with XP, like Windows shell customization, which will be very nice in certain situations.
A lot of software companies are moving to renting or leasing software, not just Microsoft. I know you probably think Microsoft's actually conspiring to take over the world, but there more than likely trying to run a business.