The G4 is not slower than the G3 without software support. I havn't seen any benchmarks that confirms such.
Something that is pretty significant in this matter is which kind of Articia chip sits on the XE. Anyone care to have a peek? Is it Articia-S, or Articia-Sa?
Also, I would think twice before dumping the G4. The altivec isn't about some minor performance gain. It's some serius sh... ..stuff.
