It is, in fact, the tablet. Thanks a lot for the help. I actually thought about PM-ing you to begin with as you kept popping up on other similar topics.
In the mean time, I did build an Ubuntu 11 thumb drive, and it was very refreshing to have it just boot immediately. There are obviously some other hurdles with going that route, though. I don't know what I can expect to get working. Most annoying so far is the digitizer failing to change axis when the screen resolution is rotated. That's kind of a biggie.
Any other pro's/con's to XP or 7 are welcome too.
Thanks for the PM. I will respond to that separately.
Thanks a lot,
Matthew