It's hard to quantify, but sitting at one of these upright Macs is a joy. The B&W screen was great for writing. It had this friendly-face look about it, and it took up so little desk space. A laptop is sort of similar, but you sit hunched over at those. The classic Mac allowed you to sit like a human instead of a caveman.

I get that it's not great for everything we do today that requires acres of screen real estate, but if you want to concentrate on a single task like writing (or programming) with little distraction, it's really nice.