Vista sucks...literally, it sucks resources.
All the bugginess aside , I just found it tried too hard to be more Mac and Linux like without getting either right. I'm told it's more secure, I suspect for 99% of people who know what a router, firewall, or Anti-virus is, it's not much of a benefit over XP though.
There's a lot to like about it, and it is pretty, but damn, my mom's new AMD 64 3400, 1 GB RAM, with Nvidea graphic card runs slow on it.
Office 2007, has a few features I like, a lot I'll just never use (as most Office releases have) that likely won't stick around, and for the most part is just the little brother of Vista visually.
I'll second Open Office for basic Office suite using. It needs help in the Macros area big time though - but if you don't use those, or even know what they are, I'm guessing Open Office is more than a viable alternative.