Hey,
Do I prefer PC over Mac? Not necessarily...they're both computers with a case, operating system, software, video card, RAM, hard drive, sound card, etc.
They both take the same RAM, hard drives, video and sound cards, printers, USB devices, etc. All the bits and pieces in my PCs can be removed and put into my Macs without even blinking.
The only difference is that Macs use Motorola based processors which calculate numbers in one direction; PC's use Intel based processors which calculate numbers in the other direction. There are other differences in the processors in how they handle instructions, I don't understand how this works and don't care to...
What really sets the two machines apart are the softwares which can be run on them. Once upon a time many many moons ago one could only do graphics and audio on Mac computers (and Amiga and Atari) because those were the platforms that companies like Digidesign and Adobe chose to develop on. At the time I'm sure that there were reasons why they chose these computers, maybe it was the stigma that PC's were designed for business, Amigas for games, etc. It was before my time...
Another thing was that Macs forced you to allocate a predefined amount of RAM to a specific program. This was good because you were always assured that x amopunt of RAM would always be used for that program; the disadvantage was that if you ran out of RAM, you would have to shut down the program and allocate more RAM to it. PC's worked with virtual RAM which was essentially a swap file on your hard drive. The advantage was that you never ran out of memory; the disadvantage was that on big projects performance was slow.
Now that RAM is so cheap I don't think that this is much of an issue, and XP allows you to allocate RAM like Macs do.
However, the Amiga and Atari disappeared and left behind the PC and Mac. Apple chose to keep their systems 'closed', PC's are completely open.
The advantage of the Mac way is that they keep closer control over what goes in and out of their machines; the disadvantage is that it becomes very expensive and you don't have as much choice.
The advantage of the PC way is that it allows for 3rd parties to easily develop products for them, users can customise them more easily, and it's cheaper; the disadvantage is that when developing software and drivers the programmers have to take into consideration that there are infinite configurations to look out for. Provided that everyone follows the rules as laid out by Microsoft, everything should work...
So both platforms have their pluses and minuses, neither is better or worse than the other in my experience...and I speak from experience because I own both Macs and PCs.
I choose to use PCs for audio because they're cheaper to buy and there are more options out there for me. I just built a PIV 2.5 ghz machine with an 80 gig drive, 512mb RAM, and a bunch of other goodies for under $700, it's been set up the way I want it from the ground up, and it is compatible with all the software I own. To do the same on a Mac would cost me almost twice as much, and I would be forced to only have one cd drive and no place for the convertor box of my soundcard. I don't know if it would perform any better or worse than a similar configuration on one of my Macs, but the price is certainly more attractive.
As for graphics and web design, our net department does EVERYTHING on the PC, including the servers, databases, backbone and front end. The graphics are done on a Mac because that the computer our designer was brought up on, he is used to its OS and he likes the way the computer 'looks' on his desktop. All the files are cross platform and can be opened from any machine on the network provided that they have the right software. It used to be an issue when the softwares weren't available for PC; now that it is available for PC it is no longer an issue.
So, to answer your question, I am expressing my opinions based on experience and cold facts: you don't need a Mac anymore to do web, graphics and audio...anyone who says that you do is an idiot and doesn't know what he's talking about.
However, if you like the way the operating system works, the way they look on your desktop and the 'cult' factor, then the Mac is a great computer to have and you should get one.
Take care,
Nick