must be a lemon, we gots a 20" imac and it's been hassle free except for a short episode with Parallels, which we decided sucked and don't use now. Thought it'd be neato to run Windows in a window for our shipping software while remaining OSX for all other things, but Parallels fux chit up, and switching from OSX to XP takes about 4 secs less with bootcamp as it does with parallels. So we run XP for shipping and game playing, OSX for everything else = virii free computing.
whatever you do, be sure to ditch that one button mouse with the grippy side buttons, as a former PC lifer person I have never been able to come to terms with mac mice and trying to use them deteriorates a bodies quality of life. I need 2-3 buttons and a wheel, sure it ain't as pretty but it works.
Make the imac work and you'll be better off for it, comparably it is hassle free computating, and prettier, quieter et al