I have been using Quicken 2005 for Mac and it really isn't that much different from Quicken 2004 for Mac. There are supposedly some more features that have been in Quicken for Windows but have been missing in Quicken for Mac, but I don't know what they are. I bought it in hopes of getting around some of the bugs in Q2004 and a couple of annoyances have disappeared. So far no new bugs have bitten me and the transition was flawless. Was it worth the price? As far as I am concerned the jury is still out on that.
I use online banking and Quicken bill pay and that all works great. But I have started using a shareware utility
QIF Master to pre-process my downloads. It has made the whole process go more smoothly and quite neatly gets around the lingering incompatibility between Safari downloads and Quicken. It also supports Investment account download data from sources other then Quicken and that is a big benefit.
If I can get the bill payment sorted out, I may switch to
MoneyDance on January first. Quicken is getting too bloated with features I never use and I have never been that crazy about the UI.
As far as using Quickbooks for personal finance that is akin to shooting mice with an elephant rifle. Not only that but Quickbooks lacks many features I would want in personal finance software. But it will work.