IMac to replace my old G4 PowerPC ?

Question

This may be a often asked question but I cannot locate an answer that satisfies my particular needs.
First, this is how I use my setup: I currently work on a G4 1.25 Dual PowerPC (mirror doors) with 1.25 GB RAM and an 80GB harddrive. I have need for a larger harddrive (I also use an external 250 GB drive) and maybe a little more RAM although since I started using Macs with a IIsi and only 17MBs of RAM my 1.25 GB works pretty well for me. I am a print designer and rely heavily on Illustrator, Photoshop, InDesign and QuarkXpress. I plan on upgrading to Adobe CS3 and would like to take advantage of the application's speed on an Intel Mac. I do not play video games or edit movies, etc. I am merely a professional print designer. I do use my computer for all of my music listening and for watching DVDs though. Another reason I wish to upgrade is to pass along my G4 to my 6 year old to play with. She's currently using my even older G4 with 0S9.
My question is this: Would a purchase of the new 24 inch iMac 2.16 Ghz with 2MB of RAM be a noticable improvement on what I currently use? If this seems like a silly question I only ask it because I recall from years past that all reviews advised professional designers away from the iMacs and instead to the PowerPCs. The main appeal of the iMac for me is the cheaper price and having everything all in one box instead of all over my office. As I stated above, I haven't really taken advantage of the upgrade possibilty to my G4 and can't see a time when I would similarly upgrade a new MacPro (or whatever the new towers are called). I'm just nervous that an iMac is a "toy" and would not be enough machine for my use. Am I misinformed?
Thanks to anyone who read my lengthy diatribe and thanks to all who can shed some light on my dilemma.
Steve
G4 1.25 Dual (Mirror door)   Mac OS X (10.4.9)   80GB HD, 1.25GB RAM

Answer 1

Hi Bryan, thanks for responding. To answer your questions: My G4 is a 1.25 Ghz Dual processor with 1MB L3 cache per processor. I currently use a 20 inch Apple monitor. And no one has actually told me that Macs were toys but I recall that early reviews of iMacs in the past have often steered graphic designers away from them and towards the tower models, and from this I inferred that iMacs were not a good choice for editing images and putting together 300 page layouts in QuarkXpress but more for a home use for web browsing, email, etc. I'm sure my bias against iMacs is that everyone I have ever known that owned one was not a graphic designer but rather someone who just wanted a home computer for tinkering around with.
But I'm undecided since the new iMacs appear to be far superior to my G4 at its base level. Like I said, I've only upgraded the RAM to 1.25 and while I'd like more to run mulitple applications without lags, it is fine for now. Especially considering my first Mac was a IIsi with only 17MB of RAM.
I guess my question is would the 24 inch (or even the newest 20 inch) iMac be a noticeable improvement over my G4 in terms of performance. I just don't want to lay the dough out for a new iMac and find my work experience suffers. On the surface the specs of the iMac look far superior to my G4 but since I've never used an iMac in a professional environment I wanted some feedback.
Thanks.
Steve