From what I've read Erase and Install is still available but is now in Disk Utility. I believe Disk Utility just looks for a valid install, 10.5 or 10.6.

Ironic that now one of the gripes against OS X is the (comparative) lack of games ....

Well lack of games was always a gripe and lack of apps all together

What PCers mean by Macs are toys is - good for ages 2 to 6 years of age and stay at home mothers , any real work is done on PCs

Yeah. The real work is getting their PC to work.

Hmm, interesting. So it sounds like I can do a clean install of the system but I cannot zero the drive then instal since there is no system to check for validity?

I guess that is clean enough. I never believed those people who zeroed drives. At least on a Mac.

The anal retentive can still zero the drive and install. It probably will look for a valid system before the erase then go into the installer when done automagically. Erase is erase whether it zeros or not, the drive is still erased.

Zeroing is an Erase option under Security Options. It doesn't hurt anything to zero a drive but I never do. I'm a cheap bastard and like to wring out my equipment, but if I suspect a drive is bad I get rid of it.

HDs constantly check for bad blocks when writing to the disk anyway. Blocks do go bad over time, if the drive writes out too many blocks and runs out of free space to remap the blocks S.M.A.R.T. will show not verified.

Yeah, it's kinda dumb..no, it's really dumb..to bundle the iLife/iWork with it because if you already have it, now you get the pleasure of buying it twice.

Actually, doesn't writing zeros to the drive eradicate all data? Simply erasing just blows off the directory so that the data is still there - just not directly accessible. That data can come back to haunt you sometimes.

I pre-ordered from Amazon:
Shipping estimate: September 1, 2009 (More about estimates)
1 item - delivery estimate: September 9, 2009 - September 15, 2009

Yes, that part is true. The ones and zeros are still there.That part is not true. If a drive can't over-write a one or zero, or if it is reading from a part of the disk where there is no directory entry, there are other problems with it, head alignment, controller stupidity, etc, that zeroing won't fix.