That's what I'm going to do. Next week, I download the Windows 8 Consumer Preview. I have a old 40GB WD HDD on hand, I'll use 5GB for data, the rest for the OS. If I like what I see, I'll get it, legally.
As much as MS is still trying to steer users away from XP, there may be some special upgrade pricing. There was with Windows 7, but I don't expect it'll be that cheap again ($49.99). It's of my opinion, that the offering was that low, on account of the terrible experience of Vista. Many users forked over a lot of money for that OS, only to downgrade to XP.
With Windows 7 sales still good, and the popularity of the OS is going nowhere soon, MS doesn't want to ruin a good thing. It would be my guess that MS is targeting XP & Vista users for Windows 8 sales, the majority of Windows 7 users is likely to go nowhere until at least Windows 9 (assuming that's the name of the OS).
By then, XP's life support will have ended, and hopefully we'll see some 128 bit CPU's on the market. But as long as XP is supported, it's going to be a tough sell. Having 3 different types of CPU's to choose from, is going to start all of those "32 vs 64 vs 128 bit, what should I get?" threads all over again.
When Windows 7 was released, there were more threads on that subject alone than anything about the OS. We don't need 3 choices.
Being that we'll have this new OS to use for free for at least a year, there's no need to pirate Windows. The latest will be free for all, and should run well on any computer that was built to run Vista & up. Many XP based PC's can run Windows 7 (or 8), if there's room in the case for a video card upgrade. There's several in the $50 to $75 range that'll do just fine. If your hardware is otherwise good, then it's a good investment.
Cat