i think an A1200 030/50 with say 16 or 32 Meg run on a PAL or NTSC monitor is probably the fastest,most cost effective and most compatible way to use a "classic" amiga. Yeah an 040 or 68060 is faster but cost alot more, and you do get software issues from time to time (especially with games). And then you really need a graphics card to things justice. If you stick to software that was written for the AGA chipset eg Dpaint, Brilliance, Music-X, Bars and Pipes, Scala, Sound studio, ImageFx then you'll be fine. You could output your animations to videotape or digitize it on your pc which can then convert this to an an mpeg file that you could burn to dvd or videocd with your pc, if you wanted to have fun with it. I found the least resource-intensive way to play mp3's was with mpega and a litle script i found on a covercd that opens a lister to choose your mp3 file. Sounds ok but sounds better if you can open a dblPAL scrren if you have a multisync monitor
I have web browsed in pal overscan 64 colors with Ibrowse with dithering on and using FBlit and Ftext which shift graphics to fastmen to give speed up. Yeah u don't get the pretty pics and flash but alot of this is eye candy and you can set up your browser to open a HaM screen if you want to see jpegs. I would install OS3.1, Magic Workbench(in 8 colors) Magic menu, MUI, Tool mananger, with a font like newtopaz (this font helps to fit more text on a Pal screen and looks nice on a pal screen) and this gives you an authentic Amiga look and feel. OS3.5+ uses glowicons which I think really need a a grphx card to look good. The task scheduler Executive also seems to help alot for speed even burning cd's
