I think you mean Microsoft WAS "the" standard? Hardly. Microsoft enjoys the confidence of very many who have no idea what is involved. Microsoft repeatedly foists proprietary 'features' upon users and upon programmers who then program explicitly for IE, "this site requires IEn", and due to Microsoft's mass, they are able to convince many users that this is the way to go.Microsoft what "the" standard and site developers wrote to IE6 if they wanted their sites to stand out..
The standards-compliant browsers are the standard, the way to go.
I have been running WIN7 for only two weeks. Anything is an improvement over Vista.
If IE9 turns out to be an improvement, that will be good. We'll be watching Microsoft's long overdue "serious efforts".