Oh snap! You guys are delightfully old skool!

You guys rock. You know what they say: If it ain't broke, don't fix it!
I'm one of those curious types and yes, a programmer / server admin / web developer by profession for years now. I guess that's another reason I'm drawn to Linux as well as the geek factor.
But times are changing! In fact, I too stuck with Windows (until this past January) for the same reason GoldCylon said: lack of applications and support for hardware I really needed/wanted to use. Well, when I tried out Linux Mint in a VirtualBox virtual machine on my Windows 7 (and then upgraded to Windows 8) on my new laptop, I found it was far better than Windows and it would (even in the virtual machine) work with nearly all my hardware! The stuff that didn't work was due to limitations of the VirtualBox emulation system. So I went and wiped the hard drive and took a dive into installing Mint raw (I have bought the restoration discs from my manufacturer so I can always reinstall it to factory Windows 7 system anytime). Well, after installing Linux directly to the hard drive as the only OS, and googling for a couple drivers (build-in SD card, all-in-one WiFi printer, graphics tablet), everything worked great! I even got bluetooth running and even my NXT Mindstorms robot kit! Also I was able to find great quality replacements for a video editor, digital audio workstation, programming text editor, programming IDE, graphics editor. All this stuff with better features than I had in Windows!
I'm going to be working on a site to help those switch over to Linux and show how to set things up, get stuff working, find programs and set them up, etc. I want to help make it real easy to switch to linux.

I'm kinda still working on backups but hopefully soon will get started on that (and back to work on my Cylon Robot project too).
I had Windows Vista on my old laptop and recently wiped it and installed Mint. That worked out perfect as well! So much easier to install than Windows, actually! Nothing went wrong!
So for those curious, you can try it. Be sure to back up all your data first and be sure you purchased a restore CD set from your computer manufacturer (most should have them available by contacting customer support. Prices range from around $5 shipping to up to maybe $20 plus shipping/tax, etc.) If it cost more, you can always google and find a hard drive image/backup program to back up everything to some other media (be sure your computer will boot using that media). And be sure you have a bootable restore setup as well. There's also options for dual-booting in most systems that are not Windows 8 pre-installed.
Or you can stick to the old Windows. Though MS will be dropping support and updates for Windows 7 in the near future and I am not sure but didn't they stop on XP already? I think they are providing updates for Windows 7 and Vista yet? So there's still time.
Oh and I forgot to mention, Linux Mint 14 comes with Play on Linux and Wine though you'd probably want to go to the Play On Linux site and grab the newest version. I've been able to get Windows programs running in those too! Stuff like Mixcraft 5 (digital audio workstation), games from Big Fish Games, Oberon Media/Pogo, PopCap, SpinTop, and some old stuff. I also have DOSBox and a gui for it so I can even play old DOS games!
This system runs everything! LOL!