I'm sorry.
I don't have an objective answer for you.
In fact, I'm so biased for the mac, that I find it hard to take the question seriously.
the question reads as if it were retorical, and meant to spark a mac vs pc argument.
dollar for dollar feature for feature, hardware specs only..... the pc wins in your example....
unless the user's over-all computing experiance, reliability, ease of use, elegance in design, bundled software, get taken into account, in which case osx wins.

One restaurant may sell pizza delivered to your door in a half hour or it's free, and another may sell pizza in a fine restaurant for more money.
are you looking for the cheapest food or an enjoyable dining experience?

There's room in the marketplace for both.
Which is for you?

... apparently neither does Microsoft......

ok, all kidding aside.... go with the operating system you like.

having used both mac and pc, you must have a preference.....

or chipped.

I'm glad you reconsidered.
I have this old video cam I bought, used at garage sale, with a tiny scratch on the lens. I use it as a web cam, and also for video pass through to firewire.

that little scratch doesn't show, normally.

but if the light hits it from the right angle, it flares up like crazy.
at the macro setting it shows up.

you could play with it for hours and not realize the lens is scratched.

but it is.

javascript:emoticon('')

from ziplock bags, to cutting the sleeve off a raincoat and using it over your camera with rubber bands, to buying an underwater housing, photographers have been making do for years.
the ease and convienence of the new sealed lenses certianly is appealing, but I suspect that any time saved when pulling the camera out had better be spent cleaning and drying before putting the camera away...lest you wind up with a bag full of rusty/fungus coated camera gear!

in looking at your other images...
I solved your color balance issues....
it's light spill reflecting off your colored walls.....
you need to work at controlling those new lights...
see if you can slide your umbrella in closer to the strobe (getting the light closer to the umbrella, will give you a little more control when you aim the light), try reflectors or snoots with grids or barn doors to reduce spill, and get those lights closer to your subject....if you make your light modifiers (ie black paper snoots, foamcore barndoors....turn off your model lights!

you are Well on your way.
some students at college level, spend half a semester, before they start getting decent results!

you got a really good model there.

I find it ridiculous trying to find good male models out here in rural manitoba.
Outside the city, it's like:

20 girls dancing with each other, and not one guy would dare get on the dancefloor....all the other rednecks would be like "He must be one of 'dem thar...homo..sapiens, or whatever...let's beat him.".

They won't associate with anybody that they don't know...so dating isn't really like dating...it's more like taking turns.......

ask some poor lass why she puts up with her drunk, wife hittting, redneck boyfriend, and she's like my "Mom would kill me if I dumped him....he's my brother....."

ok...enough of that...

Good shots!

I agree with George, try the least expensive option, and use it until you have a problem.....and would add the following:

if you find that one option doesn't work...then try the next.

here's what I find: an on camera flash, (dialed way down or bounced), and ir triggers, works great indoors under most conditions....

unless there's an awful lot of ambient light, or solid bojects like walls in the way..... (ie you got lights and a sbject on ther other side of a wall and you'r shooting through an arched doorway....).

then try radio slaves. you may find cheapo's work great, until you find yourself popping flashes in close proximity with 5 other photogs all using the same frequencies... or you're shooting a funeral procession, from the open doorway of the church, and your "client's" (pre-dececed) spouse's grave marker is 200 yards away from where you're standing, and you got a light on it to make it stand out from all the others.....

I love my new elenchrom skyport radio slaves!

dancers?
here's one done with the pentax 500 ftz on strobe setting.