If you kept an innocent man imprisoned for the remainder of his natural life then you were a thousand times more cruel than had you executed him. I would prefer death over rotting in prison hoping to find the last shred of decency in the american judicial system that had already imprisoned me. All of your arguments are romantic and foolish.
XP was a pretty good running OS with plenty of software and games. I held out till 10 was out for a bit and there were programs I wanted to run that required it.