***

Today, if Mr Cooper doesn't mind, I'd like to add another category- the proficient user who sticks to a hard-to-use program and takes pride in it. Take Linux users- yes, it is safer, faster, more stable than Windows, but it is complicated even for those who happen to have used a computer before. Even nowadays, with all that effort being put into making Linux* user-friendly, I still feel many people are scared by the very word Terminal. And this is the point- “noobs” should be kept away, and the society of enthusiasts should be closed to outsiders. You make friends with other geeks, get involved in the Vim vs Nano vs Emacs debates, and show off to every girl you see by saying “Step back, let the pro handle this”. The arguments are almost religious, while in reality none of the aforementioned products is clearly superior than the rest. None of the text editors will write a report for you, and in a the large majority of cases Windows (I can't believe I am saying this, but even Vista) will do the job just as good as any other operating system.
Being a part of this group for about an year now (I know, it is not a lot), I admit I regret getting rid of XP. It was horrible, but I never had to install tons and tons of different drivers to get above 800x600, sound is great, battery time was better than in Ubuntu 8.04 (!!!), and most importantly- games just work. No emulators, no tweaking, no swearing- they just work, and you can shoot as many bad guys as you like. Linux can't do that/

* Mac users, you are great, OS X is great, please do not flood my mailbox with angry comments.