I don't mean to be argumentative, but I've never had XP sp1 crash on me. In fact I've only just upgraded to sp2 recently (stupid, lazy me I know...). The way I look at it XP sp1 is not a different animal then XP sp2 at all, it's still XP. I see sp2 as basicaly just a big patch.
I'm just hoping that Windows 7 will not be Vista sp2! From what I've heard it will be a big improvement. With quotes from Bill Gates like "I'm very excited about the work being done there. The ability to be lower power, take less memory, be more efficient..."
Then again I also heard Windows 7 will be build off the same core architecture as Vista.