Hmm, yes and no. It is of course kind of wise to avoid discussions where people try to prove their superiority (slashdot might be such a site). On the other hand it might not a bad thing when such people sometimes are confronted with a different opinion. Of course that has the risk of being ignored of "modded down". I don't often participate in discussions here. Usually I happily ignore OS discussions here (and in general).

I am however interested in OS's. But not when the discussion is zealot vs zealot, because that is a pointless discussion. Your example about the spell checker is however a good example. OS's can be improved. Although I suspect that geeks don't spell check. But maybe they do, I don't know. I have never seen geeks getting excited about spell checking (I am not excited about it either, although it is clearly something useful)

Almost everyone here uses computers for their job and many of us develop them. It is only natural that it will be a huge subject of interest.

So do I (use computers for my job). I don't see comments how a Mac makes it easier for a programmer. Do people use Macs for programming? Is there a decent database available? Webserver? I mean something that really makes it better than Windows and Linux? When that is the case nobody ever mentions it. The discussion is about gadgets, not about work-related stuff. Gadgets do not have my interest. I would like if is the discussion would be about something more useful then gadgets. A computer is a tool. Not something to impress the other guys with - although it is clearly being used for that.

As for the Apple and Linux evangelists. I think you understand that I think they are boring, and I wish they would give way to people who really have something useful to say.