Yup--I know what you mean. I was almost burnt by the early Safari beta, and it seemed that software development, even Apple's, now gets us to pay to be their beta testers. Doesn't seem right, but I get tired of waiting. I don't mind in a good-faith community, but even the high-priced stuff expects us to troubleshoot on our own. Looks to me like the iLife, .Mac, and OSX developments are encouraging this: the new Java update talks about releasing a bunch of the code to the opensource community. Acq has a great community forum that works with Dave, so learning how to get productively involved seems to be the way for OSX users .

I've been spoiled by the quality and compatibility of the Mac software since System 6.0.7, but OSX seems to be developing with different premises. Learning to run Norton, turn off an extension or two or trashing a pref was pretty well all I needed to do. My DOS/Windows friends kept huge IT departments and techies well fed, and spent more time debugging and reinstalling and paying and paying and paying. Graphicconverter is the best example of hassle free software on Mac I've seen, but there aren't many like it. One look at the LINUX client posts told me to be thankful I'm on OSX, but also foreshadowed what troubleshooting OSX UNIX based software might mean.

You're right that debugging is not our job. I just sense we may have to learn or start funding Windows technocracies!