most normal people upgraded from Win98 straight to WinXP
Actually most normal people moved from Win98 to WinME, then to Win98. The PC my family brought in 2000 came with WinME. I was skeptical of getting WinME then, and wanted Win98 instead, but my brother convinced me otherwise with the assumption that it was better.
I would really like to know what features Windows Vista offers over WinXP. The 'latest and greatest' argument is obviously not getting Microsoft anywhere anymore. I see no reason to fork out money for a new operating system when XP is doing just fine so far.