> Does noone but me look at Elementary and see it as an obvious aping of OS X, circa Snow Leopard?

I'd pay for that. Snow Leopard was the best iteration of OS X ever.

I actually found it much better. Then again I don't like using OS X although I'm happily recommending people trying it.

What Elementary does better for me: * works with standard free software (gimp etc) without looking ugly. * installs easily on standard hw, no need to use laptops with crippeled keyboards (fn/ctrl instead of ctrl/fn) * you can use home/end everywhere instead of a mix of ctrl+a, ctrl+e, fn+something, cmd+something depending ob application. (yes, Excel on Windows annoys me as well because ctrl + a doesn't work like it does in about every other app there, but on Windows this is unusual.)

I haven't used it, but if it's good enough at aping Snow Leopard, I'll happily give you Yosemite for it.

I recommend downloading their ISO and trying it as a Live CD.

I've been running Arch on my work box for the past several years, but I'm thinking I might move to something a bit less demanding of my time the next time I upgrade hardware. I've never been a fan of the way Ubuntu does their admin stuff (which I'm guessing Elementary inherits), but I might give it a look.