I am not a fan of the delay that can occur between clicking the start menu and waiting for it to display.  Here is a quick Registry tweak that will allow for the start menu to display more quickly

Go to Start \ Run and type in regedit and click OK.

Now in Registry Editor go to HKEY_CURRENT_USER \ Control Panel \ Click on Desktop.

This opens several values in the left pane, scroll down to MenuShowDisplay and double click.

Change the Value data from the default 400 to zero and click ok.  Now just close out of the Registry Editor.

You will notice a remarkable increase in the display of the start menu.  This can be done in Vista as well, although the steps are a bit different.