Sure one can hold on to the old times of PC hardware and software forever - but it doesn't make sense anymore.
If someone is saying, they only got 4 GB or less of RAM nowadays, is really getting far behind, what's possible and available now close to 2010 ...
RAM is now as cheap to buy , like it was never before !!

It's so easy and cheap to upgrade to more then 4 GB RAM - unless - you call an outdated machine your own. Maybe someone doesn't have the bucks to spend on something new, then it can't be done, logical, too ...

But everyone should remember - Vista and Win7 are Operating Systems for nowadays PCs, so if someone want's to stick with old stuff, they have to stick with an older OS.
It's quite logical, that XP uses much less RAM and other stuff, because remember, when and for what hardware available at the time, it was written !!??

The same i could compare Windows 98 to Windows XP - Win98 needed less RAM and other resources then WinXP.
So to compare Win 3.1 to Win98 - Win 3.1 ran from 3.5" diskettes - and needed some joke of RAM to nowadays needs ...

So in my opinion this constant and forever lasting comparison between XP and uptodate OS releases is quite a joke. It simply doesn't make sense anymore.
Because new hardware handles easily those new Vista and Win7 OS - and to call 8 GB of RAM your own, is even the cheapest component to get for a PC system.

In the next 5 years XP will have a harder and harder time to keep up with the more and more rising data sizes of images, HD movies, internet websites loads and more ... so everyone will NEED to upgrade to more RAM and more powerful hardware in the coming years ...

Like i've mentioned in my before post - Vista never crashed on me - having even more stuff installed and running, than on Windows XP before ... and i wanted to get rid of XP on mine and my daughters PC at the end of 2006, simply because i got sick of reinstalling the XP system at least once or twice a year - on both PCs - after switching to Vista on both it never happened anymore ... well that's at least what i've experienced (and i'm running graphics- music- video- game- and whatever software on my PC ... so using the full spectrum ...). Okay - that's just my personal experience, can't speak for other ones (just to mention - the only thing, i'm not doing is stuff like overclocking - modding - and stuff like that - because that can be an easy killer ...).

So the simple rule to me is:
if you have older and outdated hardware, keep using XP - if you have pretty new or the newest hardware, make use of the possibilities of newer and fresher Operating Systems.

But in the end, everyone has the right to decide, what they'll be using or what they need.