Very well said Wyrd....
I had Win98 for a couple of years and Win ME for 6 months, I never had the BSOD on either, as long as you have all the correct drivers and keep the system clean.
I had a BSOD the first month I installed Win2k, I had the wrong device driver. I haven't had a crash since.( 3+ years now)
.NET unstable? None that I've experienced.