Quote - I'm just missing out on where this "easily verifyable trust" lies. 

Imagine this: * not having to hunt down drivers. Plug it in and odds are it just works. * not having to run any anti-virus, anti-spyware, anti-anything. * Everything else? Here's a few sites: Security Focus UAC troubles ...plenty of references in this very forum ab't Poser 7 and Vista. Why OSX and Linux are safer ...while you mention that you yourself have not seen any troubles, I daresay that you are a member of a lucky minority in this regard. As someone who does this sort of thing professionally, I can say with certainty that Windows is the cause of the majority of IT headaches, and not just because of numbers (for instance, 2 Windows servers in a 100-server enviironment will readily eat 20% of a sysadmin's time just to keep them running and somewhat secure). /P