This really pains me, but Windows XP Service Pack 2 is actually pretty damn good. Or at least, it’s such a vast improvement it seems like it. I’ve got hold of a copy of the sevice pack via work, so I got brave and installed it- I’m not sure if it’s on WindowsUpdate yet.

1.) The wireless (802.11, aka WiFi) configuration works, and supports WPA.
2.) The firewall is on by default, and actually gives some useful info.
3.) The bluetooth support is included, and works. Compared to my experience with the third party crap, this is very good.
4.) They’ve made lots of changes to the underlying networking to cut down on worm activity. This might upset the P2P crowd though- It introduces rate limiting and connection limits.

It’s quite some install though. It seems to replace a lot of files, and takes a good 30 min or more to install.