I do see how Microsoft dropped the ball. I do not agree with them removing older DirectX compatibility from Vista or the way that they are changing the networking, I do understand why they are doing it.
Well with the networking, they are just slowly removing support for IPv4 making room instead for IPv6 networking.
While of course leaving normal IPv4 compatability in place since much of the network still uses IPv4, MS is going to phase IPv4 to basic network connectivity as IPv6 takes over, they to me, have just done it too soon. IPv4 addresses are going to sooner or later run out, and I also am probably going to go nuts when I have to start setting static IPv6 addresses too..