Office on a Powerbook G4
I thought I'd jump in and share my experiences with Office, both the 2004 and 2008 versions.
Been running 2004 on various Macs since...well gee...2004. 😀 During that time I wrote proposals and other short to medium length documents (~25 pages). Word was always a pleasure to use. It seldom crashed, was fairly "snappy", and loaded quickly, usually in under 4 seconds on my Powerbook G4. I also use Excel extensively and it too has largely performed well. I recently returned to school to pursue a teaching career in mathematics and during that program, created extensive Powerpoint presentations, some close to 200 Mb in size (400 slides, lots of graphics, audio, etc.). It too performed quite well and was largely stable, even with those large files.
Enter Office 2008. I'm sorry to say, but it was a disappointment for me. I've experienced all the issues you other good folks have cited here, and more (I need VBA capability for writing and editing math equations). In addition, I made the unfortunate error of attempting to migrate from Apple Mail and iCal to Entourage. After two weeks of struggles with everything in Office 2008, I've ditched it and gone back to 2004. It is there I shall stay, probably for quite some time, until and unless Microsoft sorts all these issues out.
I can appreciate the effort the MS put into the programs, and I would have enjoyed some of the new features, but I don't have time to fight with software bugs, and instabilities. I have work that needs to get done (it's the big reason I like Mac so much). I have no doubt that MS will improve the user experience. I can remember when they first published Office for the Mac (OK, I'm dating myself) and it too was buggy and somewhat unstable. Over time, it became the great tool known as Office 2004.
I'll probably revisit a migration in a year or so...but I admit I was hoping for better