Or, as in my case, when Vista decided it wasn't going to talk to any
printers anymore and wouldn't give me any information as to why, ran out
of time to do a repair job after two days of the most intense
frustration. (A problem, I have to say, that took me less than half an
hour to - competently - fix when the exact same thing happened on my
Ubuntu box.)

I, like you, have extensive experience with Windows, having run every
version from 2.0 to Vista (yes, including NT, 2000 *and* Me). I have
done numerous upgrades and fresh installs and re-installs in my time -
both personally and in my previous life as a support technician - and my
experience of Windows is that it is a severe pain in the anatomy - and,
in many, many ways, is designed to be so.

Just because *you* have never had any problems keeping your systems
running, please don't assume that that means that anyone who *has* had
problems which have led to rebuilding their system is therefore most
likely to be incompetent.