I'll put my $0.02 in.

As far as building my own hardware, yep I miss that with the Macs, but not that much. I do wish Apple would license the OS to be put on 3rd party hardware like it was for a few years in the 1990s. We had several companies form in the Austin area that built killer Mac desktops until Jobs returned and did away with 3rd party licenses. But really even though I've built several desktops over the years for Windows machines, I don't care to do that any more for any OS. And what about laptops, tablets, and smartphones? No one seems to be building those themselves, and for a good reason!

I switched back to Mac OS for the first time since the mid-1990s because of two reasons: (1) Windows 8 is sucky and getting Windows 7 on a new computer is rather difficult. (2) I mostly use my computers for photography and artwork, and the Mac OS X is a much better platform for that purpose.

I went inexpensive by getting a Mac Mini, bought 16 GB of RAM from a 3rd party provider for 1/3 of what Apple charges, and like Jessica I used my old Logitech multi-button mouse (made for Windows) and a Samsung 23" monitor, both of which I already owned. All my old external harddrives I had for my Windows computers work fine with the Mac, and that is without reformatting them. They are interchangeable as-is between my Mac and my Win Laptop. So no walled garden around peripherals!

I tried a few Android tablets and a Motorola Atrix 4G android phone for 2 years. All of these were horrible because of Android. The hardware was great, but the software was sucky beyond compare. Most of the apps looked like they were written by elementary school children. I switched to the iPad and I'm very happy with performance and the apps. It simply works. I'll give up desktop customizations any day for a system that works well. I'm all about work and not play, so a custom desktop/launcher has no appeal to me. I like that Apple actually checks submitted apps to ensure they play nicely, unlike the apps that can wind up on Google Market.

As I said earlier I used an Android smartphone for two years, the Motorola Atrix 4G. Hated the stupid apps and Android. Also I hate that Android smartphones come with a zillion phone carrier apps that you cannot delete. Even worse I hate that any phone manufacturer can modify the Android that comes on their phones to give you an even suckier Android. Apple will not allow the iOS to be changed by any phone carrier, and thankfully so!!!! Any apps pre-installed by phone carriers can be completely deleted. I recently switched to an iPhone 5 and it is so wonderful to not have a smartphone that was reprogrammed by a phone carrier!!!!!!!

Walled garden? Maybe. But I'm at that age where I prefer to live in a neighborhood with walls and gates to keep the riff raff out. I'll take a peaceful walled garden any day over total chaos. I just want things to work without having to pop open the hood every few miles and spending countless hours fiddling with settings and fixing issues.