nice to see comments from you sensible chaps to balance my rant.. actually vid editing on a mac is sweet, and I first started with photoshop 2.5 on a powermac. But like Gary says, macs crash spectacularly, you learn all sorts of new words.. and as for Freehand which I use for offset and some flash, (and I've done some very good work in it) - freehand vs xara is like stereo compared to a tinny little tranistor radio... you have the scenario of an expensive monitor, fast computer etc and the screen displays in freehand are antique.. crinkly, fuzzy, erratic zoom views.. you have to have faith that the design you see onscreen will actually look sharp, smooth, print beautifully.. and thats the problem. I dont have the faith. I dont think Steve Jobs is a god and I dont care about Bill Gates business deals. For a groucho marxist, OS devotion is one step away from flat earth enthusiasms for me.. Freehand, Illustrator, even draw, drive me nuts compared to xara. Freehand is more correctly called Freudhand.. Xara has this remarkable characteristic where you can seem to find your own way to do just about anything your design needs in the program. Just using the core toolset.
And as Ross says, its you the idea generator that matters not the computer you use. OS doesnt matter but often your choice of software does.
My first animation, me destroying the computer with a sledgehammer.. I did it in windows paint. I still think thats a cool program too. (not really but you get the point..)

Q.