If I should happen to have misconstrued your point here, and caused some friendly fire, allow me to apologize in advance (I am Canadian, after all, so the apology is pretty much a given
).
Thing about Macs is that the primary source of most problems are variously known as eye-dee-ten-tee errors, PEBKACs, or Stupid User Tricks (which are the primary source of problems with all tech, most likely including runaway Toyotas). Most of the time it's nothing serious, sometimes embarrassing, but all told, no harm no foul.
Sometimes it's serious, where files disappear for some 'unknown reason' (and time machine doesn't have it stored) or programs are installed that the user 'doesn't know how it got there', with conversations usually going something like this:
"But it asked me if I wanted to 'securely' the file or something."
"Do you mean securely delete?"
"I don't know, I'm not an expert!"
"So you clicked OK and entered your username and password?"
"Of course, why wouldn't I?"
"But if you didn't know what it was for..."
"But it asked me to! It's a Mac! It should know what I want!"
Unfortunately you find people like that on just about any system.
But no, the point which I believe you've been so circumspect in making stands (and I understand your need to defend your Mac, I used to feel the same way about the Amiga, although I had less of a basis than you do right now), and I had made it in my first response to you -- Macs have been more stable than Windows (although I've been quite satisfied with the latest iteration of Windows). It's what you get when you control the hardware you're running your system on.
But they are less
secure.
Luckily not quite as many people are trying to break Mac security, so the likelihood of malware is much smaller, but not quite as many white hats are trying to find vulnerabilities before they become an issue. Considering that malware is the primary culprit in stability issues under Windows, this is definitely the route I'd go if I wanted to take down an OS X system. All it takes is finding a way to inject bad code into kernel memory (although I'm uncertain and not about to try to find out if the problems with security have been improved, I do know that the kernel is still based off a heavily modified version of Debian that has had several very severe security issues to handle, and last I heard was not going to be updated from the open source code because of licensing issues -- Apple doesn't want to share with the open source community).
Knowing this hasn't stopped me from recommending Macs to some clients (the guy with the fax/printer and modem, for one) when I felt it appropriate and they asked me for a recommendation. That does not mean I have faith in their ability not to break (or be broken). If I were to run/test the Mac equivalent of some of the stuff I regularly do on my PC, I'd almost certainly have stability issues with those programs. Likewise if I tried to run OS X on the quality of hardware that many PCs are made from. Most hardware PC problems are PSU, mobo, ram, hdd (most problems I've had with WD, funny enough), vid card (when not ATI or nVidia). Get those solid and you have a Windows machine that will rival a Mac so long as you don't try to break it or are careless in installing software.
Now, so as to put this to rest, I will state it clearly -- I neither need nor want a Macintosh system, and I am in a better position than most to make an informed decision about it. My point was never about you civ_king (I respect what you do here on the boards, and have often found your posts informative), or an attack on you. My problem was always, has been and will always be, with the idea that people feel they can make a recommendation off a single throwaway line, particularly in computers.
Or I may have gotten a little pissed off that someone on the internet actually tried to get me into the Mac vs. Windows thing, which I'd had my fill of about ten years ago, while I had a lot of time on my hands this weekend. At this hour, I'm not too sure either way.
As I'll prove Sunday when I post on Linux, my opprobrium is not limited to taking on or supporting a single OS. If you want, on Monday night I can go into a small portion of the myriad of problems Windows has had and continues to have (if I tried to be complete, I would have to out-write Robert Jordan and George R. R. Martin combined, "oh Windows, how well I've known thee"), and on Tuesday night I'll go into why all the other consumer personal computer OSes combined may have more intellectual merit and societal benefit than a guy that goes up on stage and turns his foreskin into a performance act, but just barely (that includes my beloved Amiga OS).
But if you want me to write up on Monday and Tuesday, on Wednesday I'll go into why OS X, while being a superb OS, still fails like the rest. I'll also give some detail as to why it will see a complete reversal of fortunes over the next five to ten years and why while the iPxxx line will do fine for some more years after that, it too will ultimately die out. And it has less to do with technology itself (although there is a strong element to it), and more to do with a number of factors which are completely out of both product designer's and engineer's hands.
To paraphrase Mercutio, "A pox on all their houses."
. 
