How is OpenGL formed

is the switch from fixed rendering pipeline to VBOs & shaders a big one in terms of performance? Also will it be hard to comprehend coming from doing only fixed rendering pipeline methods?

http://pastebin.com/RQKmBBVD

Can someone help me here, I've been testing with VBOs to learn them. First i just plain vertex only and it worked and now i wanted to try vertex + colors, but... i have a problem. As it renders the colors are being transformed without me even editing the data which is why i'm clueless.
The code for setting up up my vbo and rendering it is above (note: i do gen my buffers, i just have it outside the setup code)

Thank for you for the help if you do help.

Oh dear god look who is back