As for the driver support, I think most printers and cameras and things will be fine. I noticed however that not all of the really hot graphics boards were not offered with Vista (yet)...they seem to be adding more all the time though. Mine is a Nvida 7900 Gsomething and it seems more than enough for what I need for the next few years.
My son will agree with you on your graphics board thoughts that is for sure. He could care less about the noise he want to run his games at max res and max framerate and will spend hundreds of his own $ to do it. I keep trying to throttle his deisre to upgrade...its almost like a drug. (I wonder where he got that from?
) Me, I like silent machines. There is something elegant about a powerful machine that is completely scilent. I will probably move this machine to the other side of the wall into a pantry just to keep it quiet in my office. I think if you are into gaming or do a lot of DVD or TV watching on your computer you really need the graphics power, I do little gaming but use a post-processing 3D viewing software that relies heavy on OpenGl. Also the calendar photo shop stuff runs better with the board.
My son plays the new ms flight sim and that thing looks amazing in full detail but it max's out his machine, and it s fairly new. At least he uses the horsepower.