Graphics did not move back into the kernel - it was always in the kernel. What you're probably thinking of is a change in the 95/2000 transition that moved graphics device drivers into "Ring 0" on the processor. Google the term to see why people thought that was a bad idea. In retrospect it now appears to have been a non-issue; people have gotten much better at writing graphics device drivers.
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Given that we have to replace all our hard- and software it'd be just as easy to switch to something totally different - like Linux or Mac OS.
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Who told you this?
The Vista beta ran just fine on my current hardware, loaded all the device drivers for my current hardware and ran all my current software. Moving from XP to Vista will not be all that traumatic. Contrary to popular opinion, MS bends over backwards on backwards compatibility and it is one of the biggest problems with Windows' security.
The graphics layer will adjust itself depending on the hardware you are using. If you machine is not capable of running the Aero interface, Windows will scale back to the "classic" Windows interface. Heck, I do that now with Windows XP because a) it's native appearance is butt-ugly, and b) the eye-candy chews up clock cycles better spent on other things.
I do not see this as a stepping stone toward moving the kernel into mobile devices. MS already pushes "Windows XP Embedded" for that purpose. Even removing all the GUI portions of the Win32 API, there's still a heck of a lot of code there - far too much to work within the memory, processor and storage confines of the typical PDA. That's why youi have a separate "windows mobile" in the first place.
Moreover, given Microsoft's track record I wont' believe it until I can install it from my MSDN discs. Their marketing department has been talking up an object-oriented file system since the Windows NT days, and it hasn't shipped yet. 2005 was a year of steady shedding of Vista features, and that process probably isn't done yet.