Considering switching completely to a mac, can I do the following efficiently?

Hello all
I apologize for the long rambling post.
I've been fiddling around with a fully configured 17 inch macbook pro for the last few months and am

considering switching over for most if not all of my computer tasks. Part of the problem as others I'm

sure struggle with is that I've been using windows for around 20 years now and am 100 times more

efficient with it, using jaws, NVDA etc. I do understand that with time and practice, just as with

anything, someone can be efficient on the mac as well. The following is what I want to be doing, any

thoughts and comments on equivalent mac apps are appreciated. I am willing to pay a little money as

long as the app can be installed on as many machines as possible.

Browsing the internet: The only thing that bothers me so far about safari is that when reading a large

amount of text, vo plus left/right arrow separates blocks of it in to very long paragraphs. I understand

this is how voice over treats web elements, I guess the only way around it is to navigate by line with

up/down arrow inside of each paragraph? I am having a hard time with this because of the cursor

movement and it adds a few extra keystrokes, as I am use to reading in smaller chunks with up/down

arrows in windows.

E-mail: Looks good so far with a g-mail account, easy to get around to separate folders etc. Only

thing I've noticed is that VO doesn't label messages as unread, replied to, contains attachments when

moving through the inbox as outlook does. That doesn't really bother me as I don't have much mail to

keep track of but I'd still like to know if it could be done. I'd also like to create rules for things such as

messages from mailing lists or individuals being put in their own folder and the ability to send a

message to multiple people with out entering in multiple addresses every time. I would assume for the

ladder, I would just create a contact with all addresses entered in it.

Productivity: Looks like pages and numbers are all I would need since I mainly work with word and

excel. I won't be doing anything fancy, just some formatting and formulas.

Twitter: I'm currently using an older client called the Cube, mainly because it lets you browse items

with control plus windows plus arrow keys in the background no matter what application you are in. I

don't post that much but I enjoy keeping up with news and not having to be in an application to do so

is nice.

Media playback and conversion: I've been using winamp since it was first released and have never

needed to switch. I would like a player that can play all files in a folder, has good keyboard shortcuts,

can either play by default tons of file formats (including midi) or have them added, as well as stream

stations from places like shoutcast or urls in general. Maybe VLC will work? I also enjoy listening to

video game music from nintendo, sega etc and I found players that will play these special formats, will

just have to try them for accessibility.
I use NCH switch sound file converter for audio and their prism video converter for video. I saw that

switch is out for the mac so I will use that if it is accessible. I will mostly be converting files to mp3 as

well as mp3s between various bit rates. I also would like a program like sound taxy that will convert

protected WMA and any other files that play through windows media player. I assume quick time is

apples equivalent? I also really don't like itunes but mainly that is because all of my music is organized

in artist/album folders, lots of it isn't tagged and from what I've seen, itunes doesn't handle untagged

/files well at all.

Sound editing: Since 2003, I've been using sony sound forge with the purchase of Jim Snowbargers

jaws scripts. They are a spectacular addon with their own as well as sound forges keyboard shortcuts.

What I most like about them is they let you move through audio while it's playing with the left and right

arrows, with length being adjusted with up and down. I haven't seen any editors that can do that,

although I have only tried goldwave. I guess audasity would be what I'd want? I will most likely be

recording voice over top of music for an online radio show. I compose as well using CakeWalk sonar

with the CakeTalking jaws scripts but I won't get in to that at this time. It scares the crap out of me just

thinking about selling old and buying new music equipment to switch to a mac, mixers,

software/hardware instruments etc.

Audio games/other games/console emulation: It looks like windows is the way to go here. I do have a

bootcamp of windows going but the battery will last 3/4 hours at the most, compared to the 10/11

hours with brightness at 0 and screen curtain on. The reason it seems is because the higher end

macbook pros contain intel graphics as well as an nvidia graphics card. Looks like the bootcamp

drivers stick with the nvidia card in windows and won't let you switch to intel. That's ok though, I

know that there are trade offs and you can't have it all in a single machine.

I received the Mac as a gift, otherwise I might've chosen the 13 inch macbook air. I am incredibly

impressed however by the speed so far, especially boot up time. If I can do all if not most of what I

mentioned above, I'd love to stick to the mac side. I'd rather have an OS that is stable and if crashes,

speech it would seem would be still available, although NVDA is quite good at restarting if something

does happen.
Thank you again for any apps and suggestions.