If he doesn't know what to get himself, he probably doesn't need the horsepower to be honest with you.
I would suggest the standard config w/ wireless card, no extra hard drives, 8800GT.
Then go 3rd party (i.e. OWC) for 16GB of RAM and big, fast hard drives for the 3 gaping holes. Save the OEM hard drive for OS & Applications only. Don't edit on the same drive as your OS.
Rather than get the absolute fastest now, when there is a significant upgrade/speed bump, he can hand that one down and get the new one. Makes better sense than paying too much extra for bragging rights.
Oh, wait. He's the boss. He MUST have the best machine. Even if his underlings would be able to do FAR more with it.
Okay. I'm just jealous.
Lol, I agree with you. If he doesn't know what to get, odds are 200:1 he doesn't really know what he's doing... and doesn't need that kind of horsepower.
If it's an absolute must-have, I suppose you could always get...
4xSamsung SpinPoint F1 1TB HDDs (or if you're really interested in speed, noise and power consumption, 4x300GB 15K RPM drives in hardware RAID 0 (purchase the card) with an external FW800 drive (or hey, a quad-fibre channel connected to an XServe RAID) for backup.
3.2 GHz octo Xeon
32 GB RAM (more than any hard drive available 10 years ago. . . and we're talking 1998.. this isn't a 1995 Apple commercial talking about how '10 years ago in 1985....'- anyway, the point is holy ****ing ****)
nVidia Quadro FX 5600 w/1.5GB GDDR4 (Hmm. That's twice the RAM in this machine- and it's maxed [3x256MB]- and that was an ungodly amount when it came out).
Second "Superdrive" if you want
30" display
Wireless card
Don't worry, that'll only be setting you back a bit over $22,000 if you buy from Apple. Assuming you don't go for the XServe.
Realistically, though, that's ridiculous. It doesn't even sound like you'll need a graphics card for anything other than using a monitor.
Radeon 2600XT
8GB RAM not bought from Apple (if you need more, there's a good chance you're lying... =))
Decent display not from Apple
Two TB HDDs ... not from Apple
Wireless
3 GHz Xeon... 3.2 if you really want, but why bother?