How have you been able to develop under 95?!? I use it sometimes b/c I like old stuff, but as your main comp, you'd be better off putting linux on it... And it could work too... I just put linux on an old 95 era computer and it ran great! ((x)ubuntu feisty fawn)...
And, were you even able to use glest under 95? (I wonder if I could manage it?)
As to blender, the biggest problem I had is python, which I fixed by googling around a bit (that was on vista) and it also worked for me with xp...
And yeah, 3 language credit reqs are ... a bit annoying ... (I took Latin for fun in eighth grade for a high school credit, and then I had to take it again (and again) so I get the 3 consecutive years in...)