I can think of a couple of reasons why people don't use FAQ's. Humans are gregarious by nature, sometimes they make decisions based on what other people think. FAQ's don't usually include consensus results which people often use to make their decisions. It's like when people ask which motherboard to get. All of the information about the different motherboards is out there, but people want to know about experiences good or bad.
So, to answer the question about which format to use, dam&%$, read the FAQ!
Sorry, if you are using WinXP, why not start with Fat32, try it, then convert to NTFS. That can be done without reformatting. However, if you decide to convert to NTFS, you can't go back to Fat32 without reformatting. Also, if you are upgrading from ME, for example, to XP, if you want to go back to ME, you have to choose Fat32.
All of this is probably in the FAQ.