I hear what you say but in potatoe's above thread the macbooks are cheaply made and I would have to add memory and airport so it'd be more like 300 more, making it $1165. ALmost twice the price.
My main hesitation is the no warranty. I am really nervous about it breaking like a month later and having no recourse.
welcome to the world of fragile, expensive electronics.
Buy what you need, and buy all you can afford.
A G4 vs a Core2Duo is not just night and day, its almost another planet.