For me the Power Macs G4 have an absolutely timeless and pristine design. Especially the Quicksilver stands out as the perfect workstation design. Even though i have/had several G5 and Mac Pros, which are landmarks in computer design too, i don't hold them in veneration as much as the G4.
Could also be because i grew up with them. My father has a printing company and has been working with Mac all along. My first own computer was a G4 DA 466MHz which i "inherited" from him. After a brief interlude with an iMac G3 (much more compact, but slow af and no hardware to play with), i bought a G4 QS 733 second hand for about 200 bucks in 2005, but it died the PSU death soon after. Unfortunately my dad sold his QS 1GHz DP some days before for a G5 2.7 DP. So i ended up with a G4 MDD 867 DP, which served as a print server for several years after my switch to intel Macs. Two years ago i did want to sell it, but the PSU was dead. So i tinkered with it and built in an atx PSU. But instead of selling it, i got infected with the Power Mac fever again. Fast forward, my GF isn't as happy with my considerable collection of G3-5 as i am.
That's the reason i don't recycle but restore them. The eMac G4 is an absolute pain, that's true. I had to open it to swap the HDD to a SSD. Can't recommend...