From your analysis I can tell you really want to love QM and that's the way I feel so far. You are probably quite right it has great upside potential. I like the conception of QM over the typical renderfarm stupidity such as you find in Vue.

i have no idea what windows 2008 is. I am not a systems person but respect your opinion. Is it officially called Windows 2008? I want to look into this, because all I care about is speed and stability, not Aero etc.

Is it server software?

I did manage to purchase cool server-intended enterprise level hard drives for my rig, three of them, Baracuda's with 32MB cache. They were hard to find; I was sent on the quest by a friend who talked me down from Raptors.
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16822148309

This is the rig:
Antec P182 case
Zalman 850W Power Supply
Intel motherboard D975XBX2
Intel Core2 Quad Q6600
8 Gig Patriot DDR2 Memory 4-4-4-12 800 Mhz
3 Seagate Baracuda HD 250G|ST SATA2 7K ST3250310NS
Zalman CPU cooler UltraQuiet
XFX Nvidia GeForce 8800GT
Logitech Z5500 Speakers
Logitech wireless keyboard/mouse
Vista 64

::::: Opera :::::