tjwett,
I sympathize with you. Isn't OS X great? Move the mouse, get audio distortions; plug in a peripheral audio device, hear static! Now Jaguar can natively support this "special effect" in 5.1 surround sound! Way to go, Apple!
I'd been using OS 9.2 (no other choice, really), but was frustrated with the occasional instabilities. They don't happen too often, but a crash or freeze, when it happened, always occurred at the worst possible moment. I've really given up on Apple for audio work. I can't wait forever for them to fix this, and I'm sick and tired of their promises: "Oh! The next update will magically fix everything."
I wasn't about to use Windows either.
Experimenting with Linux yielded excellent results. I now have a functioning audio workstation using Linux for Power PC. There are some excellent Linux audio apps around also. (Nothing yet as nice as Logic, but you'd be surprised at what's out there for free or nearly so.) Most important of all, I get a clean audio signal each and every time.
[The only current drawback using Linux is that Firewire support is still in the beta stage. That is, if you, like me, use Firewire devices.]
What I don't understand is how the open-source world can get this right and Apple, what with all their billions of dollars and experience and reputation, can continue to screw it up so badly. Come on, even Windows 95 doesn't suffer from this problem! What's up with that?! I'm not a programmer, but this does lead me to believe that OS X has some serious problems. One thing is for certain: it is NOT a hardware problem (these things run fine on OS 9 and Linux). The problem cannot be in the UNIX core (Linux example again). Perhaps it is Aqua interfering with everything? I really do not know. (Perhaps someone here with more knowledge than I have can take a guess.)
Apple is about to seriously lose whatever credibility they had remaining in the audio world. And it is entirely their fault. People are going to be outraged when they waste their time and money on Logic for OS X and find that the OS cannot make proper - or even merely functional use of the app.
I already feel like a sucker for shelling out for Jaguar; hoping that it would at last fix all these problems. It is obvious that the next studio which attempts to set up an OS X system will: 1) never get it to work, and 2) subsequently, will never consider buying any Apple product for recording ever again, period.
This is going to be a major disaster for Apple, mark my words.