OW22, I deliberately stayed away from addressing your initial post because I knew the experts would have more useful responses to address your main concern. The only reason I bought Office for Mac was because my wife refused to consider learning anything new, and she has kept the PC. Had it just been me, I'm sure iWork would have amply covered my requirements, and the other substitutes mentioned even more so. My local Apple outlet is so embarrassed about the ludicrous off-the-shelf price being asked for the full version of Office they just sell the academic version for a quarter of the price without even asking for ID.
I wish you well with your Mac experience. I'm not going to pretend it's been a 100% favourable one, but there's no way I'm going back. FWIW, as one of the major contributors suggested above, the biggest thing for me to get my head around in the Apple experience is the overwhelming "just leave it alone" feeling you get. You can't access way into the deep innards like you are used to? That's how it's supposed to be I think.
"You don't need to worry about that sort of **** anymore son, just leave it to us, OK?" Everything works, so leave it alone, like a paternalistic government, except that unlike governments, everything does work!
Good luck, let us know how you get on. And if you have any queries, forget the apple forums, this is the place to have your questions answered. (Not by me, I hasten to add!)