[Lt Major Burns]

i think the analogy i heard was that the first releases of OSX were 'picking the low-hanging fruit'. as the areas needed for upgrade get less obvious, and changes become more fundamental as the 'fully modern OS' gets older, the scale of the updates increases. Panther -> Tiger was 18 months, and a lot of the underlying core of the OS changed, without the top layer looking much different. i also to remember people objecting to forking out $120 every 12 months for a point release.

i think if Leopard turns out to be the Vista killer they want it to be, the wait will be worth it. also, i think Tiger was released too soon, but apple prefer to ship than wait. i think you may be a very small minority of people displeased with the release schedule.

Apple should wait to see people deflated reaction to Vista, before sailing in and stealing all disappointed soon-to-be-ex microsoft customers in the hangover.