I agree with you that everything becomes obsolete pretty fast when it comes to computers, but this Granite Bay chipset really takes the cake! It hasn't beat the i845 in sales records yet and doesn't really offer any advantages over it (except AGP 8x, which is not yet needed anyway) + it's a lot more expensive than an i845 board.
There are many motherboard makers that haven't even bothered producing a mobo with this particular chipset for that reason.
Anyway, this is just FYI, if you really want one, that's your choice of course!

Intel's Application Acelerator is a really good little utility that speeds up every application on your system. And it does a pretty good job at it! Moreso, it enables 48bit disk support to be able to use harddrives larger than 137gig on your system. (currently this is only an option when you use winXP with SP1, see here)

I ALWAYS install it on a new system, 'cause it's really worth it !

As to why it doesn't work on your mobo, I have no idea. Probably because you're using a beta bios? (I know, it's not like you have another choice, but that's the only thing I can think of ; I've never had problems with this utility myself)