Go to Program Options -> Settings -> General. Under Interactive memory use, try setting it to stay in memory longer (faster to wake up, uses more memory when minimized.)

I've read through the interesting discussions in this thread and here is my view:

I have personally disliked macs for a long time and for one good reason: its closed source. I can't choose my hardware. Sometime last year, I came across the Hackintosh on Lifehacker which changed my opinion on this. I also had a chance to play with my friend's macbook when he left it with me for a few weeks. I made it my primary machine so that I could get the Mac experience.

My 2 cents:

Compared to Windows XP 32-bit SP3, Mac OS X does feel somewhat more stable. I can't speak for Vista and I never plan to install that on any of my machines. In my practical day to day experience, OS X is not faster than Windows. All my applications run at the same speed. Windows has the advantage of a wide selection of applications and while software manufacturers are improving Mac support, Mac is still ages behind Windows in terms of software choice. I agree that most people only need one good app for one job rather than a dozen and I am no different. But what should that one app be? When it comes to music for example, most Mac users are happy with iTunes. I cannot live without foobar2000, which will probably never be natively ported to Mac due to its dependence on Windows libraries. Of course, there is Parallels and VMware, which I am aware of. But that's another memory and CPU intensive application I need to run to just an extremely light music player (i.e. foobar2000). There are many other such apps that I can think of.

I understand that its not Apple's fault if software makers don't want to support it, but the same can of Linux and the whole driver fiasco with hardware manufacturers. From my experience, OS X is no better than Linux in terms of speed, security and stability, but does have a few more programs that can run on it natively (Adobe, Solidworks etc).

I also don't care how cool or not a machine looks and personally, I hate the one click mouse button. I know that I can plug in an external mouse, but for a laptop, that's another piece of hardware I have to remember to carry around in addition to the charger and its just a hassle. I think that whether we like it or not, Windows is here to stay and will continue to enjoy the majority of the market share. I would like to see Linux (probably Ubuntu) emerge as the main competitor to Windows in the future, something that can be easily achieved with better driver support and a few more software applications.