Just my two cents.

I have used the swap HDD method in the past. In fact the system is still in use with the HDD kits still in it, but one bad swap and one lost drive means I don't swap HDD anymore. I have also used a switch box and two systems, but PS/2 mice don't like being switched back and forth between systems. I now have a duel boot. My first one, and so far it works well.

Part of the fun is trying new things, and thats how I found my way here to a Linux Forum :)

I wouldn't say dual booting "messes up", what I was trying to infer was that many of the woes posted on this forum seem to involve dual booting and getting it working properly in the first place. I would be surprised if it wasn't remarkably resiliant after the inital pain of configuration (unless you change something). Of course you gotta go through all that again when you change something (add a new distro perhaps?), not as easy as just putting a hard drive in a caddy and using it.

As for getting an extra 40 gigs for $35 instead, I can get that by simply waiting an extra 6-8 weeks to buy my hard drive and it costs nothing. Of course that is not very realistic, is it? As well, you can't just add disk space to your hard drive just because you have an extra couple of bucks hanging around.

I don't mind spending extra dollars on hardware from time to time. As long as it's in small increments it doesn't hurt. Perhaps if I was a student or something I might think differently. I've been thinking lately about getting an Orbital Matrix LCD but I doubt there is much Linux support. Oh well, probably won't.