Agreed, but: I'm weary of Windows. I've run every version except Vista and 8 on my home machine. I've been a total fan of Windows. I'm just really weary of using it. I use Cygwin for scripting, but some things are really hard to do even in Cygwin. I'm seriously considering the new Pro, but I have issues (can't RAID1 the OS drive, what are those external enclosures really like? Noisy??) so I'm not sure.
Ironically, I probably would have definitely upgraded if they had not changed the form factor, since I know I'd be able to do what I want.
You don't have to run Windows, there's always Linux. Why are you weary of Windows?
I have used Windows 7 and 8 and use virtual machines with Debian for development. You could probably even install an OSX virtual machine if you wanted to.
Just keep your files organized and don't install every too much crap and it'll run beautifully.
I keep my files so that I can easily format the computer and start over fresh in a couple hours.
I also run a software firewall so that I can keep track of all connections in and out of my computer. Microsoft Security Essentials is sufficient for most Windows users for antivirus purposes, just be smart about what you install, or if you want to install lots of stuff run it in a virtual machine. I use Oracle VirtualBox, it's lightweight and fast.
Lightroom and some other programs. LR runs on both Windows and Mac, so I'm tied to these.
For why I'm weary, see Cygwin comments in OP. And, this[1] (while I don't run Windows 8 at home, I do at work). Microsoft could have bought Cygwin before Red Hat. They could have embraced the differences between UNIX and Windows and made me love Windows as a better UNIX. PowerShell? No thanks. Even if I didn't hate it, it's Windows only. Give me Bash.
Windows is an inferior OS. When I start a Cygwin Bash process, there is a non-zero chance that I won't get some memory I need. The fix is to shutdown all Cygwin processes and to rebase ALL of the dlls used by Cygwin to different addresses. Seriously, true virtual memory has been around for what, more than 30 years? Still today you can run/load a device driver that puts crap in the middle of every program's address space. How is this tolerated??
I have two CentOS boxes at home, where I do lots of my work. Every night they are updated with the latest rpms to fix problems. I only have to reboot when I install a new kernel. Windows, on the other hand, needs to reboot for almost every single Windows Update.
These are the reasons I'm weary of using this shit OS.
It's very easy, much cheaper, and extremely fun.
For $3,000 (Mac Pro base price) you can build a beast of a computer.
$2,500 with a Nvidia Titan GPU http://www.tested.com/tech/pcs/454052-small-quiet-fast-build...
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6XnU8MPjp1Y (Tested - How To Build a Kick-Ass Gaming PC 2013)