Gah I guess this means my games will need to support it when it comes out, unless it works the same as Vista internally.
On paper it's one of their objectives, so there shouldn't be much to worry about.
despite Microsoft marketing it as otherwise
But they didn't market it as otherwise... they clearly stated the same foundation was going to be used.
I would say that Vista was centered on developing a new architecture, and 7 is centered on restyling (not only aesthetically but in regards to functionality), which actually is very important in a OS and I was looking forward to it, and optimization.