While the Intel switched helped, at least I thought it was great, the big deal was that OS X was a tremendously usable Unix on amazing laptop hardware.
I'm not sure the architecture mattered as much as that did.
Agreed. I switched when there were still G4 PPC laptops just because OS X was a usable Unix with good hardware. The switch to Intel was good, but it wasn’t because I struggled with the architecture. It was for the more powerful CPUs and battery life.
Was the PowerBook as heavily used as a developer laptop as the MacBook is today?
(or Power Mac vs desktop PC as desktops were more common at the time).
I was not in the industry at the time (2000 - 2006) so I don't know the answer.