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Not a new line of thought, Josh. But it's been a while since it's been mentioned, and the Towers are due to be updated, sometime in the next 1-3 months.  So, it's worth reincarnating.

I wouldn't expect much in the tower area until around MWNY.

Right now the problems with the no DDR and slow bus are Moto's fault. We probably won't see any major changes until the PPC 970 appears.

I don't think that OS X currently scales past two processors. I'm not absolutely certain of that, but I read it on the 'net, so it must be true.

Maybe the large heastsink is Apple's attempt at using quieter fans. Not very successfully it seems. If Apple would stop encasing their towers in plastic, then they would get much better heat flow from the warm internal air within the case to the oustside ambient air. But they won't, so they don't.

Why the heck would Apple almost intentionally hobble high speed ram

They didn't.  Right now, the G4 can't support busses faster than 167 MHz.  Apple can't just throw in a 333 MHz bus.  They have to wait for Motorolla to come out with a new version of the G4 that is.  Do you really think they would add DDR RAM, but then purposely not increase the bus to match?  Right now, it's beyond their control.

They are IBM PPC 970 chips. PPC970 is a derivative of the Power series made by IBM. They will probably be introduced about summer time.

I wasn't using Macs when they went from the older PPC chips to the newer G3/G4. Now, that I'm a switcher what does this mean for me? Is the new chip supposed to be backward compatible? I wouldn't mind some insight from people have experienced this.

By backwards compatible do you mean, can you upgrade your Mac to a PPC 970?  It depends.  Apple won't ever be making upgrade cards, so you won't be able to upgrade through Apple.  However, some enterprising 3rd party manufacterer might be able to make a PPC 970 upgrade card, just like PPC 601-604->G3/4 cards, and G3->G4 cards.

I can't really think of any other definitions of backwards compatible that you might mean.  Software that is written for the 32-bit chips should run on the PPC 970, but not the other way around.  (I imagine we see hybrid 32/64-bit apps for a while.)

Yes the PPC 970 is fully backwards compatible.

If you are in the market for a new tower and can wait for a year I would.

a year?

365 days

It won't be that long.

Here's my humble opinion on why Apple went to DDR RAM without optimizing the MLB and put such a huge heatsink on their dual processors:

- Apple touted the "full symmetric processing" capability with OS X, but had few machines that actually had dual processors to take advantage of it.  And those that were on the market weren't very affordable to the casual user. 

- Apple was developing the Xserve at the same time they developed the new "Mirrored-Doors" machine.  So, they were moving to a new System Controller technology and DDR RAM anyway to implement into the new servers. 

- The new Powerbooks, the new Xserve, OS X Jaguar, Airport Extreme, and other very new technologies have been in the works over the past 12-18 (???) months or so.  Apple is gearing up for major wireless technologies with an emphasis on their portables.  Jobs even said this in his last keynote.

-  With all the new stuff being developed by Apple with the majority of attention going to software and mobile solutions, it seems their R&D has been at a minimal on the G4 PowerMac lineup.  I think Apple has implemented what technologies they were already developing for other machines into the G4s with little optimizing.

-  This gives Apple the ability to introduce a "new" line of G4s with all dual processors and the latest RAM technology while keeping their research and development on it at a minimum.  This keeps the tower crowd happy for a while and gives Apple more time to finish up their new PB G4s and other technologies they want to push.

-  SO, what you get is a new G4 PowerMac with Dual Processors and DDR RAM and watered down system controller and support for 4 IDE drives for a mere $1699.  What you don't initially know is that the RAM and dual processor is bottlenecked by the logic board and the processor card is hot enough to boil an egg.  Is it faster than the old G4s?  Sure.  Is it as innovative as the old G4s?  No way. 

Apple could keep the same processors and RAM, and only focus on the logic board.  With that alone, they could introduce a radically faster machine.  People have been yearning for a new G5 for months now.  How about a board that can handle the G4 first?!?

I am not a definitive souce people!

People can't help but trust a man with Gonzo as his avatar!