hey! I've got a G3 iMac, and it doesn't "suck ass".
the G3 has more life in it than the assmaster G4. All that the G4 has going for it is AltiVec. IBM offered to put that in the PPC 750fx, but Apple wouldn't have that.
The whole G3 vs G4 thing is as much about marketing as it is about anything. Apple Marketing sold the G4 to be the greatest thing since color screens, when really, it's only *margnially* better. Moto stumbled upon altivec and tossed it in there, unfortunately for us.
That made Apple's marketing department think that Moto is run by gods, and while IBM kept improving the G3 to be better than the G4, 'ol Stevie kept right on shoving the G4 down our throats.
I've got a G4 867, and it's really nice, but even with QE, it's not much faster than my iMac 500. It only really shines in graphics. Aqua never slows down, but the apps are just as sluggish (although nothing's really that slow on either box).
The G4 is a marketing ploy.
Anything from IBM is better than the moto shit, and always will be. The 601 was from IBM, the 603 was from Moto, and the 604 was from IBM.
The 601 and 604 were better. The G3 was from IBM and it was significantly better than the 604. The G4 was from Moto, and it was *marginally* better than the G3.