We love the Mac mini because it is so quiet. For us that is the main purchase point. The Mac mini would be perfect if it had:
- Firewire 800 (we boot from external Firewire 800 drives and carry the drives with us to work at the University and home or anywhere in the world where a Firewire Mac is available as the ultimate portability solution).
- More Firewire ports (now it only has one)
Of course, we would also like to have a quiet Mac miniTOWER with the option of 4 and 8 cores (no need of PCI or faster disks, since as said we boot from external Firewire disks), but that is another story.
We do not want the iMac because we want to use the external Apple displays, and besides we hate the glossy horrible mirror-like displays.
We do not want the PowerMac because they are too noisy, require too much electricity and generate too much heat.
In summary, the perfect desktop Mac for us would be a Mac miniTOWER with and Apple Display. Alternatively, the Mac mini with an Apple Display, booting in both cases from external Firewire disks.