Coach:
2. I overbought when I purchased my 15" PowerBook G4 (1.67GHz/1GB RAM/128MB VRAM/100GB HD) in July of 2005, in an attempt to be "future proof." But I haven't upgraded anything on it, and don't anticipate needing to until next year at the earliest; that's how well-equipped it is to handle everything I need it to. I typically have going at any given time Mail, Safari, iChat, iTunes, iCal, Word and Excel. I don't do any heavy-lifting with it, and to be honest with you I don't think it could handle it, but it sounds like it'd be well-suited to your needs.
3. Leopard was a leap forward, because prior to moving from Tiger I was considering upping the RAM to 2GB. I do get the occasional spinning beachball and sluggishness, but that may be because I've only got ~7GB of disk space remaining... (A Time Capsule is on order for this very reason!)
I really like mine and would highly recommend it to you. Intel isn't
everything.
And for perspective, I also own a black MacBook C2D 2.0Ghz, etc., and actually prefer using the PowerBook!