Office 2007, out you go!

While rebuilding my dev machine with Windows Server 2K3 a couple of weeks ago I installed Office 2007. I skipped the ultimate features such as Groove etc. leaving me with what has been my standard Office installation for years. Outlook, Word, Excel and Access. Why access? Haven't had a use for it for as long as I can remember, but I always leave it in.

My first reaction with the new Office 2007 installation wasn't the Ribbon which I love or the much improved Outlook. It was the sluggish UI and slow startup times. If I was writing a book, I maybe wouldn't have cared much about the slow load times, but it happens to be so that I need to open and close a bunch of documents throughout the day in both Excel and Word. The experience became so painful that last night I uninstalled Office 2007 and re-installed Office 2003. I've been working with Office for many years and I'm pretty familiar with what I need to get my work done. I use it mostly to read and write design specs, some basic Excel stuff and email of course. After using Office 2007 for two weeks only to revert to Office 2003 I'm feeling confident that for my usage scenario I'm not missing out on something spectacular.
I need my tools to be a snap to use and not get in my way. Maybe I'll try again after SP1, but for now I'm not going to let Office 2007 suck the power out of my workstation.

P.S I have heard that the performance of Office 2007 is significantly better on Vista, but that's off limits as well for now.