Rachel,
sorry to say that I won’t be convincing you to buy a mac. From what I read it seems like it would just complicate your life even more. Most of your work is already on two OS’s at the moment, why add a third to the mix…that is unless that’s just your thing and you enjoy that kind of mess. Of course mac folks will simply argue that the OSx is better than it’s competition. That statement may or may not be true. But something about the way you even wrote about all those programs that you have already been using. I, like you, have relied on such simple progs like WS_FTP and Top Style. Sure there are equivelant progs, but you know exactly what to do with the one’s you have. Besides, that, how much more efficient can you make Top Style? That’s like the one program in in the history of dev tools that does exactly what it’s suppose to do, and it does it well.

Also, why buy more? I’m not saying that a Mac is a waste of money, but in your case it’s a waste of resources. If you had no computer because your other two had been wiped and caught on fire, then sure, take a chance and check it out. We’re not OS ignoramuses. I’m sure we’d figure it out. Just don’t turn into one of those Mac elitists. I read your recently published book and it sounds like you’ve got a good head on your shoulders ( look at me, mister advise :p ). Never once did you really dog on internet explorer like these Firefox jockeys. Your a standards advocate, not necessarily a Firefox gal. (At least that was the impression that I got). If internet explorer adhered to standards better than firefox, you’d probably be telling people to “getIE” instead, right?

I’d say for the kind of work that designers and developers do, there is no real reason to convert. And who’s to say, even if you do get a new Macintosh computer, that you’ve been “converted.”

Hope that helps a bit. Good luck with your decision.