bluemonkey said:
I like the design of these better than the G5, and I don't want to spend several hundred dollars more on something that I don't like as well.
I agree with you there, I ended up buying a 20" 1.25GHz iMac G4 a few months ago because I just couldn't bring myself to buying into the look of the G5 (I mean don't get me wrong, its not bad, I just love the G4's look). But you should know, assuming you buy the iMac G4 through apple.com refurbished, it really costs more than getting a refurbished G5 oddly.
Such as when I bought my iMac G4 three months ago, the refurbished G5 iMac was actually $50 cheaper and was 1.8GHz with 160GB compared to the G4 at 1.25Ghz with 80GB. So monetarily the G5 is a better deal, but for me I had to go form over function.
Course if you go the ebay route you might get a better deal than apple offers so who knows in that respect.
So personally I say go for it. I honestly don't do anything really intensive on it but it does work flawlessly and have had no real problems with it. And since your not doing any huge video editing work, I see no reason you need all the extra speed, though the HD space would be nice, but you could always just get an external FW drive if you need it later.