I too was quite satisfied with XP and could have survived nicely without being forced to upgrade. Yes, I was forced as my 8 year old XP system had a major failure on the mother board ... after having the blue screen of death appear twice a day for about 3 months, I thought it best to get a new machine. Fortunately, I had installed an external hard drive and was able to copy over all my old files before the old machine finally gave up the ghost.
I went with Windows 7 - and a souped up machine with more RAM, faster processor, dual CD/DVD RW drives, and more disk capacity. I have absolutely no plans on upgrading to Windows 8 - I'm just beginning to enjoy Win 7 after learning its quirks about where it likes to store things.
Of course, technology being what it is, some of the programs and applications I was using on XP were not forward compatible with Win 7, so there was additional expense to update those as well.
I was forced to use Linux at work ... it was all too confusing, but I learned to get long with it in order to perform my job. I've tried MACs and don't like them at all ... so I stick with the old regular PC formats - like Mike, I'm much too old now to learn and use, what is to me, a foreign operating system.
I do believe that manufacturers build in a time bomb to go off after a certain interval ... this forces the user to upgrade - I would still be using my XP platform had the mother board not quit. I'm hoping that Win 7 will be around for a long time.
For me, personally, having a mobile phone is a necessity. It's my lifeline to the church, wife and close friends, since I am mostly out and about most days. However, I'm not one of those whose ear is attached to the darn thing ... I never answer or call while driving ... that's just plain nuts, imho. If it's important enough the caller will leave a voicemail and I'll call back when it's convenient and I'm not behind the wheel. We do take long trips - last year clear across the country and back. For two of my annual music performance gigs, I have to travel out of town across some very lonely stretches of road, so having the security of being able to call in a time of trouble is worth the cost to me.
Kh ♫