Vista draining laptop batteries

Some of Microsoft's most important customers aren't happy with the battery life offered by notebooks running Windows Vista.

Vista, while touted as having improved power management capabilities that would make it easier for users to extend battery life, isn't to some living up to that promise. The main culprit appears to be the Aero Glass interface, a spiffy new user interface that makes Vista more pleasing to the eye with transparent windows and animated transitions when moving from one application to another.
Note this: When Aero is turned off, battery life is equal to or better than Windows XP systems. But with it turned on, battery life suffers compared with Windows XP.

Microsoft made some important changes in Vista that do improve some aspects of battery life, such as smarter hibernation modes that override applications that want to keep running, and simpler options for choosing a power management setting. But laptop users who spent extra money on powerful laptops to handle the graphics requirements of Vista and the Aero interface are forced to run the aesthetic equivalent of Vista Basic, the low-cost version of Vista, if they care about battery life.

However, the Aero interface does add an improvement to Vista. It's one of the most notable upgrade from XP. If you remove Aero, what would Vista be?