You could consider this: salvage the case and the drives. Mod in a PC and install hacked OS X. Gives you a lot more bang for the buck while preserving the old school Mac look. Or you can start fresh and assemble a fast modern Mac with hacked OS X.

That may apply to the rich among us, but it's not viable for first time Mac switchers who are looking for value. Sure, you can jazz up a piece of ancient relic, but really it's strictly for Apple diehards. People who are looking to get a Mac "that just works" at a price competitive with Windows PCs wouldn't think twice about building a Hackintosh. Otherwise you wouldn't find such a growing number of users over at InsanelyMac. So good luck to your endeavers, banks, and do report back to inform us as to how your project turns out, and whether you feel it's worthwhile.

That may be true but adding in the cost of upgrades and such and you will end up with huge tab at the equivalent of a new PC. And the latter has far better upgradability. Unless you want to encourage our friend to use the existing computer as is given to him, and install minimalistic OS (OS9 wouldn't be a bad idea) and applications, then it might work out for him. It's all up to him entirely, no one is going to force anything on him. But judging by his response, or lack thereof, it looks like the machine is just going to sit on the floor gathering dust anyway, no?