Yeah, I was around back then. It was faster if the code was heavily optimized for AltiVec like Photoshop Gaussian Blur, image interpolation, audio filters, etc. But most general purpose code was not.

The G4s were overclocked for most of their life and stuck behind a 133mhz bus that choked the whole system. The MDDs you cite even gained the unaffectionate “Wind Tunnel” nick name. I hope whoever worked in Pro Tools with such machines had it running in a different room.

I remember a video studio still running a 68k Quadra that had some crazy expensive Avid board in 2001 or something, so I'm not surprised by high end equipment lasting a long time. Though I imagine you could emulate it on a laptop these days. Depending on 20yo hardware that ran really hot for most of its life it's not a recipe for peace of mind.

I was a huge enthusiast of 68k and the PPC and was devastated when Apple switched to Intel. Mediocrity won, I thought. Even though both architectures were much more interesting than x86, the reality of chip manufacturing is that scale is almost everything. Intel had it then, mobile phone chips have it now.