For me the point where I found myself full-timing OS X aside from the odd game that didn’t like Classic was 10.2. It was so, SO dramatically more snappy than 10

For me the point where I found myself full-timing OS X aside from the odd game that didn’t like Classic was 10.2. It was so, SO dramatically more snappy than 10.0 or 10.1 on my little 400Mhz iMac while also being more stable than OS 9. 10.3 was solid if unremarkable, and while 10.4 was nice, that’s the release where my iMac and its 8MB ATi Rage 128 GPU started creaking. Upgrading to a 1Ghz Pixar lamp iMac fixed that issue though and on that 10.4 was excellent. If it weren’t for the missing features compared to 10.5/10.6 it’d be my favorite OS X release, because I strongly prefer 10.4’s light-middle-toned take on Aqua to the dingy grays that took over in 10.5/10.6.