:::raises hand meekly:::
I just did. Why? I wanted the most bang for my buck. I have 20gig, 700mhz, a CD-RW (I think that will be very, very handy), an external zip (to use between this machine and my laptop–which isn’t technically mine, but school property, so I don’t want to put personal stuff on it), 19" monitor, and a serious sound system with surround-sound speakers. Why the stereo system? Because my stereo’s CD player went kaput for the 2nd time in 4 years, and I’m not shelling out another $100 to have it fixed again. This new computer also serves as my new stereo.
FWIW, my old desktop crashed at Christmas time to the point of near functionlessness. It won’t read or write to the floppy drive, and the CD-ROM drive hums at ominous volume levels, in addition to the various fatal exceptions, GPFs, etc. I believe both drives need to be repaired, but the cost of fixing them isn’t worth the machine itself. So, I erased everything, did a quick restore, and hauled it into my classroom.
Incidentally, this is the 2nd time the old PC crashed. The 1st time was just 8mos after purchase and they put a new hard drive on it. Now, I’m not computer stupid–I regularly ran all variety of tests on it and kept it clean with Scan Disk, Defrag, and otherwise treated the machine with care, to no avail. Apparently, that model was simply a lemon–the Compaq site describes some of the problems with it and offers a few weak tips that admittedly may or may not work. There was even a lawsuit against Compaq regarding it and other similar models a few years back. I don’t know whatever happened with it, though.
No, I do feel a little weird about spending so much $$ on this thing, but I am getting a bonus, a raise, and some other extra cash, so it won’t hurt me particularly much. And considering that 3 years ago I shelled out $3000 for a system that was, then, a “lower end” machine, I figger I got a helluva deal.
And hey, to all the Dopers that helped me in deciding what to get–thank you! Dell ROCKS! 
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