I think I understand why many of you think a client-server with a true server is preferred, I just want new users to understand that many of us function with some success without one.
In the client server setup, there is greater efficiency. Being able to install software on 10 computers via group policy versus manually installing software one by one on each computer. You get the Fax Server Driver which makes it a breeze to give everyone the ability to Print directly to Fax. Like just yesterday, I deployed OpenOffice (to replace MsOffice), Firefox 4, and a Java installation on all 10 of our computers. Doing this one by one remotely would take hours (also locally). There are a myriad of other benefits: SSL, RWW, Sharepoint, Exchange, etc. I figure if you want to start off, start strong. Bert and some other gurus could make some tutorials on how to implement group policy. (It takes like 3-5 minutes tops), but will save you hours in the future.