Windows Vista Dilema

I am currently looking at new laptops again. While in most stores I have found that most sales people will release very little information of what the problems are for this OS, that leads me to believe that they know there is a problem and are not willing to admit it. I am sort of flustered as I sort of need this to happen in the next week or at the most 2, will Vista do what most of my clients need at a reasonable price and reasonable calls into MicroSoft? I don't know, but I do believe that I know the answer.... NO! Why would this corporation make it to where if you upgrade from XP to Vista your XP key is no longer valid? Do they have something to hide? I think maybe. I have worked with Windows for quite sometime now, and don't know where to stand with it, do I tell my clients I no longer support it as the makers don't care enough to make sure that it works before it is released? Or do I continue supporting something that will cost my clients what I feel to be way too much in the way of time and money? I would preffer it if Microsoft would pay the people that have paid for it already and say thank you for being a beta tester, here is a copy of XP as we are pulling it until it is ready for production. That would make the most sense to me, if a distro if Linux did that, it would flop so hard you would never see it again. What makes Microsoft so special? Money, money and more, you got it, money! I will buy Vista only to be able yo provide a proper sense of I know what I am doing, but I will not allow this OS in my home on ANY of my home systems until they can show me that yes we have fixed the driver issues, and program compatibilities.