Disable Live resizing

Can't help you there. The system bus on the 8600 is so limited compared to the G4 systems available it isn't even funny, and that appears to be the big data crunch right there on older systems. You can tweak everything else all you like, but if the system bus clogs with data, there isn't anything else to do. The reason why CVGS doesn't work on pre-iMacs without speed degredation in 3D is because the software rendering clogs the 50Mhz bus on older machines. Had they actually taken advantage of OpenGL or something, performance would have allowed the 603/604-based machines to properly use it due to the smaller bus bandwidth requirements.
 
First, and foremost, get a second external SCSI HD for your swap files, and follow one of the many tutorials floating about the net. Use TinkerTool to turn off Anti-Aliasing of fonts, use Welch's hack for window buffers, and then up your ram to the 8600's max.

Then, you might be able to stand it.
 
Upping an 8600 to the maximum RAM is rather expensive compared to newer models, since a single 128MB DIMM for the PowerSurge models still costs 30$ at OWC. 8 of these wind up being 240$. I personally would just kick it up to 384MB or so. I have 352MB and I swap once in a blue moon with 10-20 apps running.

On the topic of getting an external HD, bull. Sure you will be on another bus, but that bus is slow and barely keeps up with 8x CD burning. If you are really craving/needing an external HD and have USB/Firewire, get something nice like APS USB/Firewire drive. It has ports for both, is priced fairly, and can be used with any new machine you buy later on.

The most significant impact will be RAM, TinkerTool and the Window Buffer feature. The external HD is overdoing it, and is way too expensive to get something along the lines of a 5-10% boost you won't ever see on older machines. Why? It will all be to improve VM speed, and I can say that 10.1 takes up 100% of an 8600s CPU regularly without a single swapout, especially if you are dragging windows, switching apps, etc. iTunes takes 35-40% of the CPU and makes everything feel slower while playing as well.

For the most part, the sluggishness is due to the system bus as I said. A 50Mhz bus doesn't cut it for a data-bandwidth intensive OS design.
 
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