I think this sort of thinking serves only to point out the obvious differences between a Mac user and a PC user. The $349 machine you purchased undoubtedly does what you want it to do. Great. Continue to do that.
My Mac has made computers fun again. Sure I pay a price for that - but as someone who has worked with just about every piece of computer history (from the Xerox STAR to the latest Suns) and everything in between, I just wanted a home machine that allowed me to do anything I ask it do to, not crash, not collect virii, and not have we tearing out my hair or spending hours trying to tweak performance out of it.
What I've gotten in my Mac Pro is a machine is is as solid as a rock, plays music or converts DVDs with the same level of simplicity, plays nice with all my other machines (Suns, Linux, and yes, even my Wife's Vista-running Dell), and is fast without requiring me to continually clean up registry entries and such.
I would highly recommend that before getting all non-linear about a stupid computer, try one - you'll find that Apple store folks to be really great and very helpful.
Screw Apple. I rather save the money. I put my own together and load XP and they are good enough and fun to work with. One thing I do like is DVI. All my computers have DVI connection to the LCD monitor. That’s where I spend more and treat myself
Right now I have an E2180 overclocked to 3.2 ghz on a Gigabyte.....lots of fun. Also have an Athlon X2 4600 on a biostar motherboard that has perfectly adequate on board video with DVI output to my monitor. I did a test installation of Vista and the on board video runs Vista Aero Glass very well. But I use and prefer XP