I totally agree that Windows Vista isn't that good of an OS, I, myself, still use XP on my PC. Hoping to change to either Windows 7 or 8 soon, not too sure when. Windows 8 I think its alright, easy enough to access your tools and programs, which i like in some ways.
Yeah, I was trying out one of the touchscreen laptops yesterday in a shop and I don't really like the idea of touchscreen laptops and it is more of a phone/tablet OS..
Indeed, Start8 is a top notch tool to have the old Start menu back in the taskbar. When I had Win8 CP installed, I tried ViStart next to StarDock and a couple of others. It was ok'ish but not that great.