This just in: A MacIIci is faster than a 3ghz P4 Windows box!
Low End Mac compared the performance of a brand new 3 ghz Windows box to an old Mac running system 6. While the comparison was limited strictly to word processing and boot-up times, an upgraded MacIIci blows the doors off the Windows box.
Of course, without restricting yourself to System 6, you can generate considerable performance improvements by just using snappier and faster application. I’m a huge fan of all of Mariner’s products, and find MarinerWrite can open and edit large documents with speeds that put Word to shame.
Or just write in your favorite text editor and paste into Word for your final formatting. (Which also avoids frustration as Word tries to “help” you by reformatting your document every time you delete a line.)