Actually......no...I didn't have to pay. I do some Mac network support and was sent a free copy. But your point is well taken. I don't hate pc's. I own 4. Each, Mac and PC, have their strong points and weaknesses. I think I've pointed this out here. But in many ways, they are apples and oranges, no pun intended. Each is just a different approach to the same problem. How to graphically interact with your pc harware and accomplish a given task. Some are fanatical about Mac's and hate PC's, and the reverse is true. I will say this. Apple has marketed itself stupidly. They have wasted many oportunities to grow. (need I mention the whole Mac clone fiasco?) At this moment in time, both are pretty neck in neck, other than market share. But, as I stated before, Apple is on it's last legs. if they don't snap out of their elitist attitude soon, they will die.
But I must take issue with you about the stability issue. I would rather have less software options available, and a system that did not require a reboot several times daily, than a plethera of titles and a crash happy OS. You can't get much done on a computer that won't keep running. It becomes a large paperweight. I do love the simplicity of the Mac OS. I have migrated the whole hard drive contents of on Mac to another by simply copying over the files.....including the OS. And it ran perfectly. Can't do that with windows very easily. In fact, I keep a few 1 gig hdd's around with a particular OS on them just for this purpose. It's faster than installing from the cd and I can copy over programs the same way, and they work. No reinstall process necessary. I really do encourage people to give Mac's a try. The learning curve is a lot shorter. Usually, people who know nothing about computers can learn most of the ins and outs of a Mac OS in about 1/2 hour. Takes much longer on a windows machine.