"[Microsoft felt] the 32-bit version a safer choice for most users"
No. Just no.
You are not a nanny, you are a company with a product. If the user buys the 64-bit version, it's his choice, not yours.
Your stupid attitude and excuses might be valid for home users, but we are talking migration here. That means business users.
It's not up to you to decide what a business actually needs. And because you're selling the same product to anyone who buys it, that means that business users can buy home versions. Sure, they shouldn't, but you're not really blocking them from doing so.
So stop deciding for your users. That despicable attitude is why Windows' behavior changes over time : you're trying to "optimize" the OS during usage, and it doesn't work. All it actually does it make the computer slower for no good reason.
My pet peeve right now is the 75 seconds it takes to open a network share and get the file contents on screen. Right at the start, it states clearly that are NNN files in the folder, but the actual file names trickle in a dozen at a time. I have an old Win7 PC and, when I open that same folder, the results are instantly displayed on my gigabit network - like they should be.
Microsoft : what the fuck are you doing ? Whatever it is, stop it !