Vista was in response to the security hole that was XP - everyone complained about how open the system was in default mode and how easy it was to hack it. The slowness in uptake of vista is due to the fixes it made to security. It's a PAIN to work in, at least until you turn all/most of those security measures off.
All current OS's with a decent GUI are resource hogs - unless you are running WFWG 3.11 you can't complain about the system resources - with ram and hard drive space so cheap just buy more
