Wow, I have had the opposite experience as everyone. There are many new features with office xp that are extremely helpful that excel 97 do not have. To name a few...Excel pivot table are greatly improved, modifying 'links' in excel xp....in Word we have Reveal Formatting-extremely helpful feature and Tables in Word XP are soo much more flexible, we now have a clipboard of 24 items....in Outlook there is the new feature of 'Group Schedules' and now Contacts is your mane address book (pab no longer exists) so that we can share, copy and email distribution lists....and these are just a few benefits.
I was the project mngr moving 1600 users to office xp (from 97), it took us 10 months (for a gov't agency). Yes, I have found flaws with Office xp...like any other new software programs...we take the good and the bad.
One last thing to consider is how Microsoft charges for uprgades with 'software insurance'. But this only effects larger organizations.
I am not trying to argue with anyone, I just hope Arthur1 keeps his options open.
-tazman