That's the rub, Cheers. Sooner or later we won't have a choice if we prefer pc's over the more expensive Macs. The SDK issue is not a figment of my imagination. Developers will either adopt Vista protocols and standards, or MS will not co-operate in facilitating production, thereby vastly increasing costs. So much for choice.
Complaining about the obvious and well documented intentional hobbling of an operating system the user pays hard earned money for is not bitching by lazy layabouts. It is a legitimate complaint against an inexcusable business practice that should be punished in the marketplace. The article I referred to earlier refutes much of what you're claiming with detailed, documented fact. My take on this issue seems to be shared by almost every professional programmer and developer I've encountered.
As for OpenGL, when thousands of users repeatedly encounter a Windows generated shutdown error message with the same programs on different machines, and when following the option for a detailed technical report reveals a failure of an OpenGL call, I think the point is obvious.
I hope you will not take my contrary position as a personal attack. We simply disagree.