Cyberseth: I believe it isn't that easy to ship DX with your CD.. Maybe Microsoft have a say in it? Someone correct me if I'm wrong! :)
you are wrong. Read your license in your DX SDK. The runtimes included with the SDK are redistributable. The public downloads are not. My mum runs Windows 95, and my brother and his wife also did up until recently. It's certainly not all that uncommon,
You want a laugh in '99 I did some payroll software for an Austrailian Bank and they were using WFW 3.11DOS based systems are still in wide use business wise, too. And its not always "little" companies running DOS based systems. With companies, depending on the work they do, there is often no need to upgrade. Even some of the poorer countries, their infrastructure is using DOS. Even in the private sector, there are likely more DOS/win 3.1 systems still in use than 32bit Win systems. When the private sector gets rid of these old DOS systems, they are often "donated" and go into schools, libraries, various nonprofit businesses, etc. Computers have a MUCH longer lifespan than people think.
Programmers, digial artists and diehard gamers are the only demographic that upgrade on a regular basis. For them it is a "necessity" for most folks it isn't.