Question: switch to office 97? (long)

[Shlomo Ramon <ramsol -at- NETVISION -dot- NET -dot- IL>]

To many it must be a resolved issue, I would like to benefit from their
experience. I have followed this debate closely, since John Glenn posted
an evaluation (good news/bad news) last April, with the conclusion so
far that the hassle may not be worth it. So I stick to the old MS Word
7, especially because the eleventh commandment of "obey thy client" says
so.
However. progress cannot be stopped indefinitely, so here is my
question: ignoring the clients who could force me to switch immediately
if their majesties so desired, is the product sufficiently debugged to
justify switching of my own volition? I mean major bugs, like format
compatibility with older versions, disappearing graphics etc.
If the answer is yes, is there a "definitely" last version I should be
asking for, without having to revert to interminable search for MS
service packages?
Some would say: Microsoft is about ready to bug us (intentional) with
yet another version of half-baked goodies, such as Office 98 etc. so if
you cannot fight, join but I would rather not fix what aint broke, life
is too short to keep learning and unlearning lots of packages just for
the heck of it.
Others might say: get Frame, to which my answer is yes, but.. "eleventh
commandment" (just invented, of course). In addition Frame has problems
too and refuses too speak Hebrew, which is a definite disadvantage here.
TIA