If you're interested in the progress of IE7 and how it will impact web usage for the typical Windows user, there's a good interview with a developer on the project. Christopher Vaughan is the Lead Program Manager for the Internet Explorer team, and has worked on IE since nearly its conception, shortly after MS acquired the initial code and released IE 2. Some of the questions relate to the "quality" involved with the Internet in IE6, such as this this answer in response to what sort of lessons were learned with IE6:
The first lesson was that the Internet isn't an innocent place any more. When IE6 was under development 6 years ago, viruses were inconveniences and true Internet crime wasn't a concern.
He also talks about user education, the goals of IE7 in security, privilege separation and active content. If you're interested at all in the development of IE7, it's a definite must read.