[symphonix]

There are reasons for all things.

Passwords and accounts are an integral part of Unix, and no real provision is made in Unix for changing a user's name. Apple have gotten around this by providing a fantastic front-end for setting up accounts and passwords, and even allowing for it to automatically log you into an account at startup.

The help browser speed problem was a bug in the early releases of Mac OS X, and has since been fixed.

As for speed, there is a significant performance hit running Mac OS X ... the system itself uses over 300mb of memory when running in its most basic configuration, and if you have less than that then you will be using virtual memory a lot. There is a lot more going on under the surface than in 9, and it does run slower.

For all that, it is worth it, as long as you keep software up to date.