Getting back on Topics, i'd shoot Berlusconi... But on second thought, since that would make him a martyr i'll just keep on my strategy of persuading MS into buying mediaset...
*WARNING: Possible flame content below*
And about MS, they will be replaced only when someone else will make a system built around retrocompatibility... Every competitor ignored the sheer mass of old software and that made them fail... Starting with IBM with that horrible mainframe OS2 thing...
And about buggy software, there's nothing like have some product team e-mail addresses and have them semi forced to listen... When you have to deal with Microsoft you have to remember some things...
A) They are a software developer and a corporation, so if you want to persuade them into doing something you should point on the profitability side... It does wonders, while on an ethical side you might not be successfull... But this is a common thing with EVERY corporation...
B) "Microsoft sux, Linux rulez shoot Bill Gates" won't bring anyone anywhere... Like everywhere in the world constructive criticism works better... I've had a few post exchanges with Monty from xiph.org (OGG "developers"), and that way he earned my respect while kicking half of my small community butts including mine... Not so hard on the programming side but still style matters...
C) What are YOU doing in order to improve the overall software quality around maybe except installing some *nix OS and feeling cool?
D) About MS slowing the innovation i would like to invite you to visit
www.microsoft.com/research and see things that belonged more to science fiction than reality... MS is not all about software and is doing great things in some fields... The IBM house thingy is a rip-off of MS projects...
E) My personal opinion is that the main problem with MS is Steve Ballmer... Though he is an excellent businessman on his own i don't share his vision of business ethics and i think few people do... That said, there is plenty of great people inside Microsoft who really cares about quality software... I had the great luck of being invited to Redmond as MVP, and had my chance to talk with the product teams and point out the problems in a very direct but still polite way...
F) It is not in my intention to start a flame on the topic, if the admins opinion is different than mine on it they are free to apply censorship here...
On a final note, if you have problems with MS or MS software post them in MS own newsgroups... If enough people post about a thing they really cares about that... Of course there are more reactive product teams than other ones but everywhere they will care and even give feedback once you reach a critical mass or point something bad enough...