LOL I love a good political debate as much as the next guy (or more) but I'll stick to the technical matters here since this is a FS forum
The 3-4 year cycle on automobiles is not that different in Europe or Japan and at least in Germany you have the added help from the federal government that mandates higher safety standards than almost anywhere else combined with bi-annual inspections that can in fact render a car inoperable.
Best example for this was the classic VW Beetle...not this new fangled monstrosity .the original one. It had a weak point in the front suspension attachments after prolonged exposure to salt and the wet elements. For many years there was a repair piece sold by VW to be welded in when the original was found to be bad. VW replaced the Beetle with the Golf or Rabbit but folks just kept fixing their beloved Bugs and the new car had only lackluster success. So VW told the TUV, the technical inspection authority, that this repair was no longer deemed safe since the repair kit by now was also manufactured by other people. Suddenly even an otherwise healthy bug had to be driven to the junk yard if that front suspension piece was found rusted....as there now was no authorized repair for the problem.
Golf sales went up and Beetles became a rare sight on German streets...after being the dominant car for a few decades. Fast forward another few years and the Golf is now the #1 selling car and VW decides that keeping its iconic Beetle alive is not such a bad idea after all and the same repair is once again approved by the manufacturer.
However I don't think the US auto industry went into the toilet because they changed styles every three years or so...I think that had a lot more to do with a severe lack of technical advance that went beyond chrome-do-hickies and power-this and power-that. Not to mention an average build quality that was shoddy at best. When the 70s fuel crisis "surprised" the world of motoring they had absolutely nothing that could compete with Germany and Japan. The imports had better handling, brakes, quality and they delivered all of that with double the mpgs.
Some would argue that once again the US giants missed the boat in the more recent history related to fuel management. Maybe thinking that "drill-baby-drill" actually works and gas prices will not be a determining factor for car buyers as much as 20-way power adjustable seat ( I adjusted mine exactly once....since nobody else gets to drive my cars ) or power lift gates and doors, all pulled around by in-effective huge displacement engines. 230 Hp from a 5 liter plus V8 is just laughable. VW got that much power out of a 2 liter inline 4 weighing about a third.
Of course the consumer is at least partially to blame in all of this. If they can sell that mess, be it Win ME or the ancient technology V8, they will keep building it. Re-packaged on occasion to get a new shine on it. If the consumer asks for a specific product often and strongly enough AND there is an alternative even the big boys react.
In the world of OS we are however pretty limited. We can of course switch to Apple or Linux. But we'd then have to deal with some sort of portal software to be able to run our sim as we know it. Or at least with Apple switch to a sim that was designed for the OS.
With the OS as with cars I evaluate based on my own needs and desires. If there is something I really like and getting it will not break the bank I'll give it a try. Sometimes that turns out to be a poor choice, but most times I find I get what I want. Of course all that evaluating does take a bit of time, so I am usually not the first one to buy anything
Cheers
Stefan
Every time I use the laptop I utter a few choice words directed at MS. Other than different names for similar functions and new menus to memorize, I have not found anything in Win7 that is necessary vis a vis XP. But then again, we wouldn't be stimulating the economy, would we? 
