Maybe you should send out a memo to set them straight, the entire creative industry is still using those overpriced toys. Surely designers don't need high quality type display, font and color management, and built-in multi-language support.
Mac displays are not very good. Their color range is poor. It is the middle-top end of consumer displays, but it is by no means a professional display. I wouldn't even dream of doing anything requiring accurate colors on an Mac display. Their 30" is about as relevant as Xserve. It is not their target demographic any more.
I am not knocking Mac hardware. Their mobile hardware is the best on the market. However, the perception that Macs are design machines came from when Photoshop was a Mac exclusive. This has not been the case for a very long time and I would say the PC version of Photoshop is significantly better than the Mac version as it stands. I have a MacBook, but I also have a PC largely because I use Photoshop many hours each day and Photoshop on OS X is bad.
Color management, besides being supported by Windows, is more applicable to print design and pretty much irrelevant when it comes to design viewed on a screen.
Ofcourse, the creative industry has always preferred Macs, and they still do. That's why it's the designer's platform, not because Apple targets them.
As for Apple's displays: you're right, they're not as good as high-end monitors from Samsung, Eizo or Barco. Apple's displays are not made for print designers, they're made for multimedia. This has been the case ever since Apple switched from CRT to LCD. However, the price is right: $999 for a 27" screen with LED backlighting and IPS is hard to beat.
As for Photoshop performance on Mac vs Windows: are you using an older version of Photoshop for Mac? Those weren't 64-bit, didn't utilize the GPU and didn't make use of multiple cores well. Try CS5 on Mac, it's stable and fast.
I wasn't really talking about performance on Mac vs Windows. Photoshop on Mac is buggier, designed poorly, and very flakey overall. I have used both platforms. I own both platforms.
Yes, most designers do just fine with them. Most workspaces of high end design firms I've seen, or you can see photographed on the intertubes, are using Macs with Mac displays.
And they tend to do just fine against the competition at reviews too.
Are we really still grappling with the idea that some people's time is worth enough that the extra money paid for the laptop isn't a big deal?
I thought we'd gotten past that kind of "ra ra ra GO TEAM!" mindset in terms of the tools we used.
Should we debate the merits of Chevy vs. Ford trucks now?
Maybe I could tell you how much better my football team is.
Anyways, in most settings in the creative industry, the software on a workstation is more expensive than the hardware, no matter whether that's a Mac or a Windows machine. And yes, if the person operating the machine earns more than minimum wage, a couple of thousand for a computer really isn't the biggest business expense.
Plus, really good designers are like really good developers. If they don't get to work on the machines they like, they'll walk. Which is just too bad for anybody in IT that wants to push Windows.