Mac Desktops?

[ffutures]

I want to look seriously at updating my computers after the next Forgotten Futures is finished.

I'm still not convinced that Linux is the answer to my computer problems, although it does seem to be a good way to give a PC a second lease of live without having to buy bloody Windows.

This leaves me with three main options:

1. Buy Windows 7 and try to get it working on the most recent of my PCs. Not entirely sure I want to go this route - I get the impression that there are enough compatibility problems that I might end up regretting it.
2. Buy a new Windows 7 box. Ditto
3. Buy a Mac, possibly something like a good 2nd-hand G5. Defininte software problems, but if I'm likely to need new software either way I might as well go this route, it probably isn't much more expensive.

So assuming I did decide to go the Mac route, and wanted to do it on the cheap, what should I be looking at? I can see some G5 boxes with OS-X 10.5 around £150 on Ebay, what's the catch?

• Can I readily get something that will use my 22" VGA monitor? And let me rotate the bastard?
• Can you get keyboards suited to heavy two-finger typists?

Moving onto software:

• What's available for OCR?
• Is there an upgrade path for Acrobat (not reader, the version you pay for) from Windows to Mac?
• Is there a good equivalent to Corel Draw? And a good basic paint program that isn't a PITA to learn?

Probably lots of other questions, but these are main ones for my work needs.

Any thoughts?