excuse cross post

I'm still running Windows 2000 Pro and Windows ME (dual boot) and I love them both for different reasons.
Before anybody wastes time flaming me about WME, please understand that WME can do some things W2K can't, and is completely reliable (yes, really), as long as it is not patched and not connected to the Internet, which is true for me. Please also understand that upgrading any of my software is a severe expense on my tiny income. I cannot do it lightly.
It does bug me I admit that 2K cannot run some XP-only pgms.
(It particularly bugs me that Fred Langa almost never mentions that such pgms are indeed XP-only. But that's another story. www.langa.com, for free and plus versions of the famous LangaList Windows newsletter. I have no connection with Fred or Langa.com.)
I put all the heavy lifting (of which there is very little) on W2K, which is religiously Service Packed and patched, and which runs tons of apps, mostly system and gfx pgms--but all only as a hobby.
It does frustrate me that I cannot run the latest Expression versions (e.g. Interactive Designer), but I can live without them, since I have at 40+ aging gfx pgms.
My main question is, if I wait for and buy Vista Basic, will I be able to run Acrylic and its friends? Will I find gfx happiness at last? Or will I spend my days thereafter upgrading hardware and learning quirky new MSFT gfx interfaces?
My system is an AMD Athlon 2000 (plenty fast enough now, but I could consider upgrading--if there were any real benefit to Vista to begin with) with 512 MB RAM (upgradeable to 2 GB or more), an integrated SiS gfx card that robs its <currently 32 MB> VRAM from main RAM, two 60 GB HDDs, USB2, BellSouth DSL (medium version) running on a Westell USB modem (it won't run with Ethernet), DVD, CD, diskette, 19" monitor, and whatever I forgot.
I am concerned about gfx, because I keep reading that Vista wants the last gasp in gfx cards. What are the main benefits if any of Vista's new gfx engines?
I don't play any fancy games, so that's not an issue.
My main concern is does an old fart like me need to keep upgrading Windows (since 3.0) when my current system is so tweaked that it's virtually hand-carved, and does, if truth be known, virtually everything I need it to?
I may have just answered my own question, but I'd value your comments.
Walterius Old, and increasingly outmoded in Fort Lauderdale