We have a kick arse exchange rate and the US Amazon ships here, use that and you can probably get it at about half the price. Shop around other places and you'll likely get a better deal still. If you're a student or work for a school, google "its not piracy" and you can buy a legit upgrade version of 7 Pro for au$45 (also office 2007 for au$75)
OS pricing has always been crazy, nearly everyone I know pirates their OS because they're not willing and/or able to readily fork over au$200-400 for windows. If it was priced the same as a game then noone I know would have a problem with buying it. I'd lay odds that at least a quarter of the market share of linux is because XP was too expensive

Hell yes, the Gods of Mail Delivery came through and I have the OS in my hand! I'm going to back my shit up and then install this. A shitty day just got better.

That has to be a world first.
Someone looks FORWARD to installing their operating system...

Well, when your current OS is called Windows Vista, it's not hard to look forward to getting rid of it.

Thanks to an agreement with MS and the head department, I should get a copy for free as long as I'm employed by them. No word on when they will ship out the discs, but I can wait for an OS.
I have no issue with Vista. I could even say I like it.
I'm probably also mad.

Then we're both mad, I much prefer Vista to XP.

I might buy Windows but at the moment I'm happy with Vista (gasp). Windows 7 is a step up visually but in terms of work and gaming I'm not sure whether it has an advantage. I certainly won'y install it until I know what the compatibility situations are for my programs and games (especially those games that had problems with Vista which I've now sorted out).

Anything that works with Vista should work equally well with 7, and backwards compatibility with older software seems better than in Vista, I'd say you're pretty safe to upgrade.

This is me.
Needless to say I also prefer vista for most tasks. I do take exception to the fact it hides a lot of the system settings but I guess it's so idiots can't turn off DHCP requests and then spend hours yelling at tech support demanding to know why they can't use the internet. If 7 had a "I'm a network engineer, don't hide anything" option during install I'd be happy.

Wouldn't work. Everyone else would think "I are not shtupid!" and click it as well - and pretty soon fuck something up.

Awesome Blackadder reference, I love the series!
Anyway, I think that what most people are looking forward the most is definitely an OS that is not trying to be like Mac OS X (ooh, snap) in the way Microsoft tries to make everything seem all happy and hidden and you know nothing about the inner workings of the operatins system in Vista. To make something idiot-proof is just pandering to the dumbest group of people who use computers.
That said, I'm cautiously optimistic while it's installing right now.

There were problems with Vista?! Where?!

Oh, that sucks. Then again, I know what it's like using an OEM version of Windows and being treated like a non-entity by MS.

It wasn't Mac-like enough, it needed the dock as well. Microsoft added that, and presto! Windows 7.