Hi Richard,
Before I started my playmobil collection, I was a big LEGO fan, but I realised that I was always trying to mimic the Tudor style houses of playmobil. So is started to buy some steck houses and initially I was disappointed how limited that steck was. For example: you can not put a the sheriffs office prison in a Castle building with a floor on top,...). But then I realised that is was fun to make new things in a very limited world (and that painting and cutting is OK, which is totally forbidden in the LEGO world).
I was amazed about the capability of system X but also think it is way to difficult for a four year old with that silly screwdriver). I don't know if they are going to phase it out, some themes seem to use it a lot (Modern themes like school, fire and police). Whilst others seem to ignore it completely( Egypt, new pirates, fantasy knights). I just think it depends on the designer of the theme, whether or not he/she likes to used it.
I just wish they made some new steck parts.
I love macs, i cannot see a reason to use windows but then again I am not a hard core computer user.