Ben you bought a black friday laptop. Isn't fair to say you get what you pay for. Also are you saying the build quality of that laptop is the same for all PC based laptops? If so that's a pretty bold statement.
As for the ATI and Vista issues Nivida had the same problems as well but SP1 updated drivers fixed most if not all of those issues. Also Windows 7 is night and day better the Vista. Its what Vista should have been.
having played with both I would still buy a windows system I get more for my money and I don't have to get any special programs to run apps the 90% of the population uses.