instead of the way Apple does it, releasing a slightly upgraded OS at full price (Cheetah, Jaguar, Panther, Tiger and now Leopard, 2001 - present)?

Why does everybody have the allusion that Apple releases small updates? Every update since the Puma has had a hundreds of new features and optimizations. Apple has always tried to stay on top by using the latest compilers to increase the speed and responsiveness and new technologies that Microsoft is still only dreaming about. Tiger introduced more than 200 new features to Panther. Jaguar and Panther introduced at least 150 to each of the predecessors. All of them compiled with the latest compilers and optimized more than the previous versions. What has Windows XP really added to ME/2000? What did ME really do for 98? How much of Vista was scrapped because they couldn't get it out in time? I'm not saying that Apple is perfect and that Microsoft is Evil. But if you're going to bag on Apple in comparison to updates talk about the 9 updates Tiger has seen since its release, talk about the 10 that Panther saw, talk about the 8 that Jaguar had. You might mention that in each of those there was a screw up with a release that Apple had to release a hot fix for. 10.4.7a Intel where the video drivers slowed things down. Or 10.2.7 that could delete your home folder. Or the initial release of Panther that ate firewire drives for lunch. These are the things that you should be bagging on Apple... You don't need to make things up or repeat the rhetoric of the anti-Apple camp. When it comes down to it, Microsoft does suck at putting out software they always have. Windows 98 (which was halfway Windows 99 ) offered the minimum upgrades to keep up with technology. Windows ME (Might Explode or Mediocre Edition) offered less features than bugs and has been hailed as the worst operating system ever. The only major upgrade was Windows 95, which again was almost Windows 96. Any of us that were working in the computer field in those days can remember how 95 turned out.