What was the problem with word? My word is fine.
Yeah, I agree with lots of RAM. Mainly because OSX will tend to use the hdd instead of RAM when the RAM fills up. And since the standard laptop speed of hdd is 4200RPM that'll get hella slow. I always tell people to Max out their RAM. Whether through an Apple BTO or buying from Crucial, either way is fine. There has been less headaches since I switched to the Mac. I switched a little more than a year ago (March 03) and I'm a bit of a neat freak. I was at the point to where I'd reinstall Windows every weekend because I couldn't get rid of some programs through uninstalling. Mainly this was because in Windows programs preferences were stored in a registry and with every install you made the registry bigger. Therefore it takes longer to load. Mac preferences are stored in a folder as individual text files w/ the ext. .plist. And since not all of them load when I boot up, I feel a less of a need to remove them. Which is why, I believe, Windows slows down with regular use. Macs, I've found, do not get slower with use. I had to reinstall OSX recently (well, I didn't have to - turned out to be a problem with Apple's servers instead of a problem with Sherlock) and the new OSX installation wasn't any faster than my 6month old install of OSX.
The only big problems I've experienced with OSX is when left on for more than 20 days Finder gets odd, as key commands quit working it in. Though a log off and log in fixes it. Like I couldn't press Enter to rename a file and I couldn't tab on the dialog boxes when it asked me if I wanted to keep the old extension or use the new one.