FYI, Vista 32-bit will only recognize 3GB of RAM. Anything higher than that and you will need 64-bit.
I’m using Vista x86 at home and have had zero issues with it at all. Everything I’ve thrown at it just works like it should. No special drivers, no funny workarounds. It all just works as advertised.
At work, I’m using Vista x64 and I actually was expecting to run into some driver issues or some kind of goofy issues. But to my surprise, I’ve had no issues with that either. In fact, everything seems to be running faster now that I’ve switched to x64 (no benchmarks to prove it, it just seems faster).
People who have issues with Vista are either using old technology, or just haven’t tried it yet because all of their friends tell them it sucks.