Ok, a few questions:
How different are the video card upgrades? When I punch in the suggested 8800, I notice the next upgrades are only $100 and $250 more, is it worth it?
Get extra RAM and HD elsewhere right? What about all this RAID stuff?
I assume there is a big difference with the one or two quad cores?
I do want an Imac, but I just hate the thought of not being able to upgrade!
Thanks!
It's worth it for the 8800GT if:
1) You don't mind the wait
2) You do gaming or HD video editing
3) You want the video card to last a LONG time.
Yes, hard drive and RAM from third party is so much cheaper, and unless you really, really need a RAID setup, but you don't want to even experiment with it, then I guess you are stuck with asking Apple for it.
One or two CPU matters if you have applications that support them, but with the recent trends, they favors multicore/CPU, so if you don't mind the $400 or so extra, it's worth it.
I won't get an iMac because the video card in there is pretty bad, especially if you want to do decent games 2 or so years down the line - don't think it can last that long, at least in acceptable performance... Besides, the price different start to disappear once you get really high end on the iMac.