Badly. Connect time = ages, frequent problems.
I had issues with this prior to Snow Leopard. It has been fine with Snow Leopard and Lion, which isn't surprising since they stopped using SAMBA then.
AD = Badly. And no it's not a 'real' version of Outlook - significant functionality is missing. Office is still a poor second cousin, though it is obviously better than the alternatives on the platform. Incremental improvements over the previous poor integration at best.
I agree about Outlook, though I
hate the Windows version of Outlook too. I like the OSX version of Word better. The OSX Version of Excel is a piece of garbage. I honestly
can't remember the last time I opened an office document that wasn't PowerPoint, though, so... I
really don't care. If it opens a Word document, lets me edit the text, and can print to a PDF, then it does what I need. I could not care less about "advanced features" of Word or anything (and if I'm going to lay out a document that needs more than text, I'm going to do it in InDesign anyway). If Office is the main reason you are buying the PC? Well then, YMMV.
Active Directory support can be called "working" but it is certainly far-from-perfect. We have hundreds of Macs on our ActiveDirectory domain at the office. They certainly have their issues, but I wouldn't say they are substantially more or less "fiddly" than the various Windows laptops we have, so I'd call that a wash in most ways. Of course, if one of the ways you need them to work is one of the ways they're fiddly? Well, then, YMMV.
And, yes, much of the other stuff is related to the advantages of running in a VM. I said that.
But, of course, on Windows, you cannot get the advantages of running OSX in a VM without using a hacky unsupported method to get the image to boot. It can be done. I run one at home, but I'm much, much, much more happy with my multiple copies of Parallels running Windows than I am with my OSX Lion VM on VMWare at home. You also can't simply reboot your PC and get "real" OSX like you can with Boot Camp on a Mac. Ergo, more flexible.
When I was discussing hardware, I specifically mentioned laptops for a reason (though, I admit, I wasn't 100% clear on that). Unless you have a very specific need to run a Mac Pro (in which case, you wouldn't even be asking these questions) then a Mac Pro is a terrible choice for you, just like buying a HP Z800 Workstation would be a poor choice for most home users of Windows. But, for me at least, the question is simple:
1. If you are buying a portable computer, and OSX is an option, get a Macbook. They have the best build quality and support out there (and, yes, I would certainly include Lenovo). If you later decide you really would rather stick to Windows? No biggie, install it and set it to boot there by default. Done.
2. If you are buying a desktop PC, then the decision is much, much less clear. I build all of my own, so I'm a poor person to ask for opinions, because I universally HATE all of the vendors up-to-and-including things like the Z800. The iMac is a very good choice if you need a simple single-PC setup and you want a nice piece of glass to go with it anyway. They're high-end compared to all the other similar "all in ones" and the support is better. But if you are looking for a "PC in a traditional desktop box" then look elsewhere. The Mac Pro is NOT that. It is a workstation.
As far as AppleCare... Are they perfect? No. Absolutely not. Are they better than basically every other support vendor out there for PCs that a home user might choose? Heck yes. And, yes, a big part of that is
because of the stores (though not exclusively from that). I've dealt with them all. The only vendor that even comes close is Lenovo, and they don't have the presence in the States to compare to the Apple Stores and support system. And their laptops are all thick, plasticy, junk with fiddly power supplies and questionable drivers.
Sorry, I just don't completely agree.
PS. Calling people zealots, even in a sideways way, is the quickest way to make yourself look silly and to make your comments get disregarded on their face. Call it the "Fanboy exclusion rule". The way I read it when I read someone calls someone else a fanboy (in any camp, whether Mac vs. Windows, or Linux vs. Everyone, or AMD vs. Nvidia, or whatever) is "I'm an unreasonable person who doesn't have an open mind."
That's something 12 year olds do on forums like Engadget. Lets not have that here. You don't know
anywhere enough about me and my experiences to make any kind of call like that. For example, I don't know how old you are, but I've been running VMs since before the web existed. OSX did NOT get me into VMs. So stop talking out of your nether region, okay?