Just did a bit of googling and couldn't find a way to put WMP10 back on, WMP11 is the earliest for Vista...but there are probably WMP10 skins out for 11, ill have a look around
I like it much better. Best way I can suggest using it would be when you open it up click the songs tab on lefthand side. Search feature is great. One of the best parts a vista you can just type in a song name when you open the start menu.
The more I use WMP11 the more I like it. It just took some time to get use to the interface. My only complaint is the inability to maunally add files to the library.