I think I will investigate the Linux compatible angle for a bit. I've already had some interest from some hard core Linux kernel hackers (although they seem pretty convinced Mach was the wrong solution, it is here to stay and at least the microkernel approach means we can neatly have multiple environments).
I think this is the right way to go.
Once you can run Linux/x86 application like Mozilla with acceptable performance in Bochs on MacOS X you should be able to run applications such as Word in Wine with similar performance. Similarly, once Linux/x86 Gimp runs with acceptable performance in Bochs on MacOS X you can run Photoshop in Wine with similar performance (well, once it runs in Wine that is).
Wine should be able to achieve greater performance than Bochs on the same system configuration. IIRC, WABI sent only 25% of its cycles emulating X86 instructions, the rest of the API calls were implemented and executed in native mode. In Bochs case, it spends 100% of its time emulating X86 instructions.