Hi Don,
I have used Apple Mac's a long time. It's never been as good as it is now! For me, with Tiger X.4.11. (Others with the newest OS X.5.1 Leopard may have other thoughts).
I've run all major Adobe Graphics apps since about 1987, and use CS3 Suite and some other apps like Corel Painter XI. Also use a lot of Photoshop Pluggins (and unfortunately there are a few that I can't run, but the good news is those pluggins are being updated for the Mac OS X in the near future). I also use Color Management Software for profiling monitors and printers. Plus all the usual Apple iLife and iWork apps which take care of fun and business. Oh, I left out FileMaker Pro for databases. itunes for my entire CD collection runs on a dedicated Mac Mini that I run headless and control with Apple Remote Desktop. Apple provides powerful disk utilities to set up RAIDs, and it's all been great. I hear that running Windows under the Mac OS is better than Windows ;-)
I have one production machine running without a crash (major or minor) for 5 + years, and the newer one for 2.5 years which is on 24/7, and I only reboiot after software installs, and all the while I've been using Apple's Software Update to keep the Systems at the latest iterations, and they perform virtually flawlessly. I do make sure the latest system software is stable by first installing it on a less important iMac first - just to be sure I don't get sniped by a rogue update.
I have a lot of friends and they all use Windows and (it seems to me they wish it were either 1995 or 1998 again). What stories they tell! Every one has lost their entire computer because of fatal crashes. They all have lost data, and their attitude is usually oh, well, it was bound to happen. (I can't believe how afraid of computing they all remain - hello, it's the 21st century). I'm sure problems happen on Mac's too (maybe I'm extra lucky), but I am very impressed with Apple's latest Hardware and Software offerings. I am much happier on a secure platform that btw has just been purchased by the US military because they are sick of playing with the pirates and hackers.
Good luck with whatever you decide to purchase. At any rate it will be work. New equipment always is, but from personal experience, I know Macs are much less IT and a lot more ART. I am into ART, and IT for me is a necessary evil that is wearing a friendly face thanks to the hard working and skillful creatives at Apple, (and Adobe).
So long for now, TOM