My folks bought a 286-20 from Dell and it was the fastest machine I had ever worked on. Early in my career as a computer entrepreneur I incrementally upgraded it from mono/Hercules to VGA, added a '287 math-co and eventually a bigger hard drive. I think they got 10 years out of that box before jumping to a 486-DX-100.

For my honors thesis in college I splurged on an 80386-40 and ULSI math co-processor. It was a 386 running like a 486. For a brief and shining moment I had the fastest personal machine on campus. As always the moment was fleeting but I didn't replace that machine until Windows 95 came out.