Being a long time windows user. I've just made a switch to mac since a few months ago. way b4 this, I was using a combo between window and linux. reason for linux is just for the very same reason as osx being a unix. It's stable and has less virus to lurk in the net for unix based system.
The whole time when i was using linux, i've got problems with some drivers and missing some commercial software like photoshop (wine can run it but it's far from perfect). When I was in windows, I always have to spend time to maintain it. which made me more attached to virus scan, malware scan, defragment, registery scan. All of this takes numerous time off my schedule being a 3d animator needing all of those precious rendering time for the machine to work.
It's no doubt that window can be efficient as well if it begin with doesn't have an internet connections to get virus and malware problems. But what's the point of using a machine without internet connection in 21th century?
Now i'm using an ibook for web surfing and some light work on artworks while waiting for my new 17" MBP to arrive (to admit, apple m'sia respond on educator's purchase is too slow. took them nearly 1 month to give me a quotation).
i'm spend more time on my work instead of struggling with my pc on maintainance. After using ppc alone without intel mac for a while, I find that osx is sufficient for most of my needs while i can starts to forget about windows. It's true that I've to sacrifice some plugins and etc. But i still can live without it on a ppc.
When my mbp arrive, I doubt I'll have much interest to install xp in it except for some games that only available in xp.
anyway, I've promised myself not to use my new lappy for gaming (play ps2 instead). So I'll stick with osx alone for now.