Long story short, looking to go back to XP as primary operating system - why? Out of all the OS's that I have used, XP has always been the best performing with less hog on resources.
Other options I was thinking was to install Ubuntu and create a Virtual XP environment.
Anyone else still actively running XP?
That really would not be at all advisable. XP hasn't had any security updates for bang on 3 years now - also, Google, Mozilla and most other third-party vendors have dropped support for their products on XP. For example, Google Chrome only runs up to about version 49 on XP - it's up to version 57 now.
It would make absolutely no sense to go back to it at this stage. If your hardware is old and you need something usable, consider a lightweight Linux distribution. Windows XP would be dangerous to use on the Internet these days, if you value your personal privacy.