I'm not bothered when we get a G5, just as long as apple keep giving the entry level G4 the same CPU minus Level 3 cache as the dual model in the previous lineup, I'll be more than happy plonking down £1,600+ on an entry level G4 with 15" LCD in 6 to 9 months time whatever CPU it uses. Just as long as they don't take away the 7200rpm drives on the entry level models. Actually it wouldn't hurt to give the entry level powermac a 1Mb level 3 cache as a compromise.
Also, one thing I think of with the G5, if Apple get a 64bit CPU in a powermac model before 64 bit chips are available for Windows PCs, we'll have one up on the darkside
Think about it, not only will we have a 64bit CPU, we'll have one we can run all our current applications on. PCs going 64 bit would be a joke, Just think how fast PC emulation is on the mac now, about as fast as PCs were when the 233Mhz G3 came out, if that. Imagine trying to run an emulation layer similar to the 68000 emulator macs have in Classic on a PC?
trying to get it to emulate any Pentium 4 or Althlon XP cpu would be joke, I can't see PCs going 64bit anytime soon in the mainstream anyway even if Intel surprise everyone and bring out a 64bit Pentium 5 or whatever at some huge clock speed.
The G5 is something to look forward to, the G4 is something to save for and buy because you know it exists, you know what it can and can't do and you're not going to be a sucker buying a REV A model of a new machine because the G4 as product is fairly mature now so any issues are either dealt with or detailed info is available about them.
I was totally stung when I bought my Beige G3, I bought it the month the B&W G3s were released, thinking it HAD to be a new model being a 300Mhz DT, it wasn't, it had a production date of late '97, a REV A motherboard, a lame Rage II+ graphics card, limited memory compatability and no slave support on the HD controller. If any of those things were classed as a fault I would have demanded my money back right away. You don't get any of these issues with a machine that's been in development for a few years, VERSION 1.0 of anything isn't always good.
None of this has put me off getting another mac when I can afford one. It's made very cautious of plonking down large sums of money on Apple computers if I don't fully know the spec. I didn't even know about REV numbers at the time. All I knew was that in the UK, by the time the 300Mhz G3 DT was out, magazines had already mentioned the fact that all new models came with a Rage Pro, could add a second EIDE hard disk and all the desktops would accept 256Mb DIMMs. All I can say on the name of the mac dealer is that were swallowed up by a much larger company that sound a bit like Can Con, I hope they can't personally. I know I'm drifting into anger here, but it's just one story against the idea of buying the first version of anything. Apple are very open about the specs of their machines, but at the time I was buying my G3 I couldn't find out EVERYTHING about it until months after the warranty ran out. I suspect I was sold an overclocked 266 now.