There is another way to increase program speed and decrease memory usage on a 32 Bit Windows machine.
Remove the bloat.
Run a dos or early windows program on a high end machine. The results are amazing. Functionally and in basic usage there's not a lot of difference between some programs with conterparts from the early 90s yet the ones from the 90s are 1 tenth the size and 50 times faster.
There I don't agree. A lot of the old programs have limitations, bugs and missing features. Most are actually incompatible with new operating systems and only work under emulation. Putting old operating systems on new hardware is another nightmare in its own right.
It's an old argument many Linux distros have used over the years: use slimmed down software to gain speed, because you don't
need those new features. Anyone tried viewing modern web sites with Dillo?
Seriously, things have moved on. Eventually, 32-bit computing will be as obsolete as C64 BASIC is today - or indeed as obsolete as Amigas have become.
That the 32-bit memory limitation of Windows is an issue as a result of Microsoft's success in penetrating such a huge slice of the market. Developers don't want to abandon the existing user base (mostly 32-bit) and some can't afford the development costs of releasing 64-bit versions of their stuff just yet. This leads to users sticking with 32-bit because they don't want the hassle of (partially or fully) incompatible applications and you have a vicious circle. To a lesser extent the same vicious circle applies to Linux too, though that's improved a lot of late.
The fact that most systems now selling with pre-installed Windows 7 come with the 64-bit version will accelerate the transition to 64-bit as software developers are forced to get their finger out and the current memory limitation on 32-bit Windows systems will be pretty much irrelevant in a couple of years' time.
As for the research the OP mentioned, let's face facts: if people did their research, they'd probably make the same choice. Some would choose a Mac and some would use Linux, again depending on what their prime requirement would be.
Very few people would have their needs met by an Amiga, or by something running AmigaOS. Mostly those people are... well...
here.
The article on Tom's Hardware is useful and interesting and yes, it's a kludge, but before we laugh too hard we should remember what they say about people living in glass houses.
