On the whole 64-bit / x86 that was mentioned earlier in the comments…
I avoided 64-bit carefully for a number of reasons. First, X32 is the supported standard, and I knew that Intel was coming out with multi-core processors. I figured, and I think I may have figured correctly, that people were going to be more willing to figure out multi-threading than they were going to be willing to figure out X64 architecture. I sort of saw this coming when Apple began releasing dual-processor G5s several years ago.
Much as I think the whole concept of “more processors equals better computer” argument is rather silly, it is the way the industry tends to trend. I mean, it took years for all the die-hard Apple fans to swap from Motorola to PowerPC chipsets, and they only did that because they more or less had to for speed purposes. Apple continued to support FAT applications right up the the release of OS X.
To this point, most PCs since the industry really got off the ground with the 8086 have all been based on that exact architecture. S’why we call 'em X86. Of course, I never knew if “286” was short-hand for 8286, or if it literally went 8086, 268, 386, 486, Pentium, Pentium II, Pentium III, Pentium 4, Intel Core Duo, etc. I’m sure I’ve missed one or two iterations in there.
I’m hoping they’re going to have the quad-cores available for purchase this summer when I’ll be trolling for yet another new computer. If they don’t, I’ll probably just max out a dual core system. It’s something, anyway.