XP will no longer be sold as of June 30th. Don't even bother with it.
http://www.microsoft.com/windows/pro...xp/future.mspx
There's nothing wrong with Vista. It's a perfectly usable OS. It has quirks like all OS's, it uses more system resources than XP (but if you're trying to game with 512MB of memory good luck) but so what? I sell $600 Gateways with 3GB of RAM and Tri cores. Vista will run great on that. Not to mention it's a ton more secure than XP ever thought of being.
As most of you know, I'm no Microsoft zealot. I'm running Linux right now. I know a decent OS when I see one though. That's why I haven't been on XP in ages. Get Vista 64-bit, put your foot in your mouth around your friends and game happily. If they give you crap for bashing Vista and then buying it, sorry dude, you kinda had it coming ;).