Vista upgrade for legacy owners

Believe me, I did not want to buy a computer before it would come factory installed with Vista, but my last Vaio VGN-S150 died and I could not wait any longer. I would bet that there are a lot of people like me who are just going to pony up the money for the Vista "upgrade" from XP. Here is my question. We have all read this:

" For Sony VAIO PC Windows XP units purchased before October 26th 2006, Sony will provide a complimentary DVD kit to upgrade applications, utilities and drivers ($9.95 Shipping and Handling not included). Contact your local retailer for a full copy of Windows Vista operating system."

My question is, will this be really necessary? Won't Sony have all of these drivers on their Sony Support website. Why do I need a DVD? Can't I download some sort of self executing file that will do whatever the DVD will. It would certainly cost Sony less. Am I just reading too much into this? Why would anybody want to buy a DVD rather than burning their own on their machine that they intend to upgrade? or just downloading the file to a flash stick and having it ready for your "upgrade", or just going online after your upgrade and going to the Sony Support and updating drivers from there. Is there going to be a "Haves" and "Have not" support site?

 

In my experience, Sony is notoriously bad at having the right drivers available on their site. If they offered a DVD for $10, I'd take that option instead of fighting their website.

 

Actually, having read the Sony website on the upgrade, I now think that almost everybody on this list certainly will be in the same boat as I am as none of the "upgrade" plans include an update to Vista Ultimate. I am betting that most people here were planning on selecting ultimate as their final OS. That is what I ran in Beta and I have no plan on downgrading as a final solution. Just think, we get to do this all over again when Office 2007 comes out.