This is temporary, but not THAT temporary

Another thing to consider is that the current trend of slimming down of laptops, both in size
and in price, may and likely will continue.

In that case the importance of the difference in OS performance will continue to not just
exist but increase. If new processors can increase performance without increasing power
consumption, others may lower power consumption even further without loosing performance,
further lowering the costs.

As for Windows 7, if history is of any indication, the final product probably won't be nearly
as great as the initial hype we are hearing these days.