I will agree with you that these machines were well
made, but Dell's
quality has gone way down since then.
The real bitch with Dell's proprietary supplies are that they use a
connector that looks just like the one on ATX spec supplies. If you plug
an ATX supply into a dell board, expect fireworks. They use a totally
different pinout, and you'll end up with a dead power supply and or board.
(I've never done this myself, but I know a few folks who did.)
-Toth
While others vent their disgust with cause on oddball Dell's PSUs, I
will say for sure that I have seen few Dells
with same thing on old P5's all the way to very recent tiny towers
that opens up like small carry-on suitcase w/ internal green handles
(shades of IBM-style stuff).
Other than that PSU fuss and dreadful drive rails, their
documentations, drivers is good even on old machines, just look for
s/n ID and call up the dell website's tech support, punch in info,
done.
Cheers,
Wizard