I get about 30 second boot times, and I've never really counted how long it takes to shut down.

That might have been malware trying to infect the kernel. Vista shuts down instantly to avoid it, and doesn't have the time to warn the user. Also, that's happened to me on multiple occasions with XP, even though XP doesn't have that security feature.

That's plain wrong. When Windows Vista or XP shuts down automatically, it's either installing updates, or it's hit a blue screen of death. They changed the blue screen of death to an automatic restart. If a virus was trying to infect the kernel, first off the kernel would have no way of knowing, and second off, the virus has to use security holes in the kernel to infect the kernel. (It's like trying to perform surgery on someone by sending e-mails telling them where to make incisions. If you somehow know they're trying to hurt you, then it's as easy as not doing what they say!) If the operating system knows that it's about to damage itself, then there's far smarter things to do, like, just not listen to the guilty program at all. Or simply do what Linux does, and simply not provide a direct service for programs to change the kernel, or any system files, or other programs, at all, for that matter. It's not like any program should be touching any other programs or system files.

Google Vista bsod or XP bsod. Clearly, BSoD still exists in Vista and XP.

It still exists, however, the default setting is to instantly restart the computer, rather than waiting for the user to do anything. It actually shows, but the majority of humans are too slow to see -- nevermind read, the error.

Default was the same in XP.