That's one thing I like about XP. For example, my HP Scanjet 3300C, which was a PITA (wouldn't even work with Windows 2000), was detected upon first plug-in, and the drivers were loaded without even the need for a CD insertion. Also, it picked up my Kodak DX3500, and loaded drivers for that w/o any trouble at all.
IMHO, the people who are WinXP-bashing simply either 1) haven't tried it or 2) tried it and had a bad experience with it. Remember that 2 happens with Windows 2000 and Linux also.