I've found virtual machines to work pretty well for this use case actually: far more convenient than dual-booting, and not as error-prone as Wine (at least in my experience). e.g. I boot into Linux, but fire up a Windows 10 VM for those times when I want/need Microsoft Office and stuff.
Or actually, you could go the other way (even for your "learn Linux" plan): just make a Linux virtual machine on your Windows box so you can have a play and not have to worry about trashing anything while you're still figuring your way around.
It was just a genuinely good OS. Sure, the security left a little to be desired (but Windows Vista's obnoxious "Are you sure you want to do this?" dialog boxes every second were a step too far in the opposite direction). But compatibility was good. And 'backward-compatibility' was good: e.g. if you'd used any Windows system before in your life, then you already knew how to use XP and there was nothing to learn. XP wasn't a jarringly new experience like Vista or Windows 8 (or even Windows 10, to some extent; I skipped Windows 8, so the new Start menu layout still kind of irks me, and I'm still surprised every time I see the right-hand side "Action Center" pane come up).
The fact that XP was flanked by Windows ME/2000 and Vista only helped it, too.