Strata, with your comment it seems that you have this idea that Windows needs to take over from something, but you really don't know what do you?
I do; its bad rep from Vista. I personally know a bit of people who hate it, whether it be from seeing other people hate it or them hating it themselves, resorting to OS X or XP.
And when you say buff it up, really all you mean is that you hope that they can steal more ideas from a superior operating system.
My hopes exactly.
There wouldn't be a reason to even create System 7 unless Vista failed which it has.
Sure there's a reason besides that; money. A new OS, a new thing to have. Microsoft makes a new OS every 3 years. XP's time was enlongated because of its treacherous start.
On a side note, I personally find 7 to be a great upgrade from XP. It makes the most of my RAM, Video memory and Battery life--where as vista did the opposite. And the new features... are actually features. Not just covered up XPness.
This is also not the first time that Jobs has taken a leave of absence. The person taking over is the same person as the prior time and it obviously didn't hurt the company any.
Well damn.