Note that as big an amiga fan as I am,a "nextgen" AMIGAOS machine is not even on my list because its too crazy expensive for 10+ year old hardware. I saw a friends sam system, which he paid 1200$ on choke on super stardust aga and demos also. Not going to go there, its a dead end, and not a solution
for my amiga fix.
Mac G4 hardware should fare a lot better with games than the Sam hardware but will still be too slow for AGA demos. The main problem with UAE on the PPC operating systems is the lack off JIT emulation. Raccy is working on UAE-JIT for OS4 and I think Thore and Itix have plans to get it working under MorphOS.
Anyone who has traveled these different roads, please let me know what you think. The budget I have is perhaps 500$ by paypal, dependent on proceeds
of my ebay adventures in the next month or two.
A Mac G4 or G5 + MorphOS license will easily fit into $500, you'll maybe have half or more of that budget remaining. Like others say you can get the hardware dirt cheap if you look carefully, MorphOS is free to try and if you don't like the hardware can easily be sold on, maybe even for a profit.