There are many other reasons to run a win emu than just to use office. There are a lot of fx reasearch programs that are written for windows only :-( not many of those needs an ultra faaast pc and are therefore perfect suited for an emulation.
I would consider buying a good x86 emulator even if it cost as much as a outdated pc. Why ?? space and time considerations. Who wants to connect a bunch of cables, power up a second computer, swap files between them one way or another, when you just as well could have a screen running win95 behind you WB screen?