I love these kinds of memories and stories, as I was right in the thick of this stuff as it happened. A solid six years of Mac-using under my belt (System 7.1 was my first OS, on my Quadra 610 purchased in February 1994). So I went through OS 8 and 9, and then into OS X.
I attended the 2000 Macworld Expo in Frisco (my only one), where OS X was unveiled. I didn't attend the keynote, but I saw the replays on the screens, and then watched a couple of different presentations on stage at the the big Apple booth, where Apple staffers basically re-enacted the OS X unveiling, and showed off Aqua, the dock, the new window buttons, etc.
I eventually had the public beta, but it was frustrating. I kept dabbling with it, though. I knew it was "the future", so "rallying against it" made no sense to me. Either I was going to get left behind, or OS 9. And it sure as hell wasn't going to be the former...
In 2002, I started to use it more and more on my iMac G4 (Jaguar). When October 2003 rolled around, I jumped full-tilt into OS X, with my new PowerBook G4 (and the free copy of 10.3 Panther I got that night, the "Night of Panther"). Haven't looked back since, and can barely even remember (or care) anything about OS 9. Hell, I mostly hated it back then, when it was the default OS. Once I got my head around OS X a bit, and loved that one misbehaving application wouldn't take my entire Mac down, that was all I needed to hear.
And it helped that OS X software started creeping out and picking up during that time too, big and small titles alike.
But I remember those early days of OS X...just exploring all the new UI features, and purposely clicking menus just so I could see the shadow it cast. And dragging windows around and thinking it was so cool that the image remained (and you weren't just dragging an outline and "guessing".
Ahhh...the stuff we take for granted now.
The first thing I said at Macworld, upon looking up to the rafters and seeing the big blue, gel-like "X" banners hanging everywhere was "cool...they're making the OS look like the iMacs!" I loved that period. Everything was round, inviting, colorful, translucent and lickable...the hardware
and the OS/software!
I was fully onboard from the get-go, even if it took a while to get used to it. But been using it full-time since October 2003, and it just gets better with each major release, IMO. With the exception of Leopard, I was onto the new major upgrades within the first 24-48 hours of release. I took a couple of months with Leopard.