When I installed Windows 7, I went from no OS to functioning desktop in 17 minutes. 2 of those minutes were spent crawling around on the floor to write down my license key. (Like an idiot, I stuck the sticker on my case before I installed the OS. Oops.) This was faster than OS X and Ubuntu. Until Windows 7, Ubuntu was the fastest installing OS I'd ever come across.

I did the Windows updates (after enabling updates for all MS products) in 2 restarts.

Your problem is that you're restarting whenever you finish uninstalling program X. The fact of the matter is that you can uninstall most all of the programs one after the other and then do a single restart, even if the uninstaller tells you differently. (The only exception I make is when removing AV software like McAfee and Norton.) Also, you might want to check out PC De-crapifier. ( http://www.pcdecrapifier.com/ )

For batch installs after you've cleaned a machine, you might want to check out ninite. ( http://ninite.com/ ) Select the programs you want on there and walk away.

When you run Windows update, make sure you have the option to update other Microsoft programs ticked.

(And you can thank the Justice Dept for making you go to the MS website to download even the most trivial of programs. Derp derp monopoly derp derp. It's ridiculous.)

The fact of the matter is that Windows 7 is miles ahead of XP in terms of installing updates and not requiring a reboot. XP used to take hours. Windows 7 took me about ten minutes after the initial installation.