Kinda dorky Mac question, but, does anyone have a favorite version of the OS? I liked 8.6-9.0 best.

I ask that because OS X is nice, but for somereason keeps fucking with me more and more. LIke tonight I wanted to watch a Sienfeld .avi file tonight, one i've watched a few times before without any problems, "The Marine Biologist" but this evening both quicktime and vfc couldnt get the job done due to some werid ass errors. What the fuck?
There alot of other little things that get to it now and then, and in the past 3 has given me more grief than my orginal imac ever had. She was a beast, a fighter to the end,i can still count on her to work, and ge the job done. Abit slowly. My newer flat paneled imac isnt itself anymore after a HD crash this summer. All the data was saved, but it came back scared. Almost like my mac o.d. on music homework and porn? So, what do I ask with this rant?

Peoples favorite version of mac os?
How can I get my damn sienfelds to play like they used to?

Thanks.

ps- why does my computer take forever to start up?

I absolutely love OSX compared to any versions of classic, though I haven't had the problems you've had.
If you're having problems with OSX, the first thing I would recommend doing is repairing permissions on your hard disk. Just go to Applications->Utilities->Disk Utility. Highlight your HD and click on Repair Permissions. I don't know why or how permissions get screwed up, but other people recommend repairing permissions both before and after installing any software or upgrades.
Another maintenance item that you may need to run is cron scripts. I don't know much about them, other than Macs are scheduled to run them sometime in the middle of the night. If your computer is off or sleeping, they don't get run. You can force the scripts to run in the Terminal if you're familiar with Unix, or you can get 3rd party software to run the scripts. I use Cocktail, available at versiontracker.com, which also makes it easy to empty system caches, delete system logs, etc.
I hope this helps some.