I like maxing out systems with hardware upgrades but still use the OS and software that is close to the year the system was sold new. People run into problems installing a much newer OS (and associated software) on old machines.

Lets face it, some machines were sold new with small HDs and little RAM (heck the original Mac was pretty much unusable). A Mac SE for example didn't have ethernet out of the box, but it makes life much easier these days. Maxing out the RAM, installing a newer and faster/larger HD makes life easier as well. Some CPU upgrades make sense as well, if they don't cost too much.

The older word processors were nice because they didn't have all those options people with ADD play around with instead of writing (actually I prefer DOS based ones because you don't even have fonts to worry about until it is time to print). And you don't have that IM/internet stuff popping up to distract you when you are deep into whatever it is you are doing.

People designed rockets and got to the moon using much less processing power then is in my old relic of a IIfx. Real work can be done on pretty much anything if you are creative.