Vista sucks now, and it will on release.
It looks nice though, shame it's broke in theory.
I've used it since beta 1 and I don't agree at all. 
80% performance on games compared to XP
Restrictions on the Windows Kernel, disallowing external antivirus programs to be installed, and pretty much disabling you from ever touching the Windows folder?
Sucks.
It really shows you have not tried or been kept up with the lates info. 80% gameperformance compared to XP is bogus. Even beta 1 gave increased my performance on Quake 4, F.E.A.R., Battlefield 2 and Half Life 2. I can't give any stats on that but the framerate on the same settings were between 5-15 in these games on the same settings on XP. Windows Kernel, well all have complaints on that are the software engineers but Microsoft has the right to restrict it to since this isin't opensource and an open kernel can be dangerous. Antivirus softwares as far as I know have settled this with Microsoft already and are allowed. And I'm in the Windows folder fiddleing, even replacing a sound or two already so I don't know where you got the restrictions story from.
My experiences with Vista so far and this is the late RTM version. So Restrictionwise its not much different from XP. The difference is there are settings that let you choose to make a Vista system become very restrictive.