have other things to do with my life and am quite happy with the overall performance from the thing out of the box.

Ditto – couldn’t agree more.

I understand what you mean about graphics. However, a better graphics card & CPU may allow more, or more complicated, objects & effects to become visible, which may be hidden on lesser models. As to accuracy, I’ve already agreed on that.

You can adjust the sound level differences between various effects – engine noise, for instance, can be raised or lowered as you require. Also, by default, my sound settings were at “low” quality – changing it to “high” has made a significant difference. So maybe a little tweaking is okay? 😉

(Alt (if in full screen mode)/options/settings/sound)

Clearly reinstalling/reformating is not something to be taken lightly & I would not even advocate it as a last resort under XP, if FS2004 doesn’t run there is a hardware problem that needs addressing and reinstalling the OS once an item has been changed is not necessary. I found replacing my graphics card (which wasn’t supported) and CDRW/DVD combi (which needed changing anyway) worked for me.