Most people would be happy with the store bought systems because they use them as big word processers and Email machines.
For the rest of us they are junk.
Compaq, HP, Packard Bell, and the rest of them, except for IBM are not great.
Remember most people are not very smart when it comes to PC's and the big boys take advantage of that.
All we can do is try to tell people what the difference is, but with the advertising they do it is hard.
The Computer Mags are pushing the store bought stuff, and those Dells and Gateways.
My PII 350 will flat out run them all, It doesn't matter what processer they have, they are slow.