Office 2007 - you were right
When I asked if I should install Vista and/or Office 2007, I really didn't know what to expect. Geeks can be funny, and although wanting to install all the latest doo-dads is common I've heard a lot of whinging about Vista.
In the end, I just installed Office 2007, and will pass on Vista until I repave. It's just too much of a risk, and will take too long to reinstall all the stuff I use daily.
Office 2007, I have to say, rocks so far. It took an hour to upgrade and everything worked. Kinda cool.
Love the ribbon stuff. So hard to explain, but it does seem that the options that I want are right there now.
Two gotchas - first my newsgator toolbar disappeared, but it came back after rebooting (strangely Office 2007 didn't reboot after installation) and second, it does seem slow to download email right now. Perhaps it'll improve, but I'm getting the internet connection hanging up (browser hangs too) when email is being downloaded. And this is not a lot of email - since I deleted my catchall my email count has plummeted.
But overall I'm very pleased. Thanks for everyone's advice!