I managed to talk work into getting me a 20" screen at work. 1) It's amazing. 2) It's fantastic. 3) My coworkers are all jealous (I'm the only one that got one, and it turns out I'm only one that's going to get one since the related project is essentially falling through (which would have bought a series of screens and G5s for quite a few people within my PC-only company)
My initial thought was, WOW. What an amazing box.
I'm also sure the 20" iMacs ARE amazing boxes. But I don't think I would ever buy one, nor would I recommend it to anyone I know under nearly all circumstances. Here's why:
At $2200 the iMac is about $400 cheaper than buying the 20" display and a G4 tower seperately ($1299+$1299). That's not a bad little difference, about 20% off. what it would take to buy equivalently-capable equipment otherwise.
However, that's a pretty big investment into a system that really can't ever be upgraded. When purchasing seperately, I can at least take my $1300 investment into my Cinema display and move it into a new base (new 2.5ghz G5, let's say). I can't do that with the iMac - if I want to move up to a better system, I essentially lose the very expensive monitor as well.
I guess this has always been the problem with the iMacs, but in this case the price point is too high, and the monitor too large a financial component of the hardware (in my opinion) to justify having to lose the monitor if I ever want to change out the system.
It's all a matter of opinion, I know. I do think the system would be exceedingly cool to have, and I'd recommend it to someone that absolutely had to have that form factor in a system, but really to no one else. I suspect most people would also say the same - I'm guessing this will sell to an even more limited market share than is going to be trimmed down by the price...