Choosing a hammer for its smell.

I think that's a bad argument. While it may be a valid argument for the one time project, it is not a valid argument when you are talking about science and building up a vast source of tools that can be used by all. I agree mathematica is nice, and convenient, and I don't have a problem with paying for the convenience. The problem is that it is proprietary software and there are arguments against that in general.

As for the whoever says I should write my papers in Word ... that's ludicrous. i'd spend the rest of my years clicking buttons in the equation editor, I couldn't put my stuff on xxx.lanl.gov, and I'd be looked at as a fool. Everyone in high energy physics uses unix basically. CERN supports gcc and g77. They wrote paw, it's under a modified GPL... you try and break out SigmaPlot and excel and you'll get laughed out of Geneva.