and your point is?
This article has NOTHING to say about the costs of these various OSes... it is about HOW WELL THEY DO THE JOB.
For the unnumbered time, Echo, OS X is the name of the Operating System... not the revision number. The .x numbers are not just updates or service packs... they are NEW releases.
OS X.0, OS X.1, OS X.2, OS X.3 and OS X.4 offer as much increase in functionality and features, if not more, as the jump from Windows 95 to Windows 98 to Windows 2000 to WindowsXP did. Apple is just capable of doing proper development in a reasonable amount of time.
System Requirements
PC or Macintosh computer running Windows 2000, XP, or Mac OS 10.2.8 & higher with Bluetooth 1.1 (or higher) connection, CD-ROM drive, and color monitor.
Color Efex Pro 2.0 GE requires Adobe Photoshop Elements 2.0 (included) or Photoshop 7.0 & higher.
.1-.8 were free.
When Leopard comes out Tiger will be two years old so I don't see $129 being out of the realm for an upgrade and it's not really any different than what MSFT was doing when they were on the ball -- Windows 3.1 (1992) Windows 95, Windows 98, Windows 2000, Windows XP (Oct. 2001 for Pete's sake), none of which were free.
I'm rather happy with Tiger and I'm probably not going to get Leopard for this machine -- a five-year-old Quicksilver G4.
Heck, I still have, and use, machines with OS 9.