An somewhat related and comical look at the performance of Win7 compared to XP: http://www.infoworld.com/archives/emailPrint.jsp?R=printThis&A=/article/09/01/22/03TC-windows-multicore_5.html.
Apple goes forward. Microsoft goes backwards.
Yup. I pop up on different forums from time to time. Depends how much free time I have. :)
Your issue does sound like an ISO issue. The first time I downloaded the Win7 ISO it was corrupted for me.
Here's a page describing how to install Win7 on VMware Fusion. Works great.
http://www.mikedipetrillo.com/mikedvirtualization/2009/01/windows-7-on-mac.html
You can download a free trial of VMware Fusion here:
http://www.vmware.com/products/fusion/
You can get a discount on VMware...