Gimmie a break. You're not that much older than I am.
The first windows OS I dealt with was 95, and had the displeasure of dealing with it for about three years. It would constantly blue screen and was "catching crashes". I absolutely loathed that operating system. Frankly, you're the only person I've met that liked 95.
I currently run Vista on my laptop and I have since 2009. No reformats, nothing. Beyond slowing down a bit on start up compared to when I got it, I still have had no issues.