Re: reinstalling all their special programs is daunting at best
It's not so much the reinstall as it is that at 10 years the new platform you get with your new hardware is no longer compatible with your install disks. So you have to buy a new license for each of those specialized programs. The daunting bit is the extra cost that adds to buying the new PC.
This is where a truly user friendly version of Linux would clean up. Install Linux then install all those special programs because it will still accept them.
Oh, and that means the reason the reinstalls are so easy for the pros is that the licenses are covered under some sort of Enterprise agreement.
A lot of new programs are utter crap.
My landlord/roommate will concur 1000% on this. He hasn't upgraded to the current software for his Mac because they changed something in the functionality of the picture manipulation software included with the OS. As he is fond of taking entirely too many pictures* on his intercontinental trips that occur at least once every two years, this is completely unacceptable to him.
*At the moment I think he has about 1T of storage on sim cards and sometimes feels squeezed for storage space even though he purges bad pictures nightly.