trust me on this when I say, go to FutureWorld, they're proper apple agents. I got my macbook pro from the sates, and one month later when I tried to a update to the firmware, something went terribly wrong and it just wouldn't come on. So I took it to future world and got it checked; they said my motherboard was busted. But luckily it was under international warranty (cause it was only a month old), they took it in and repaired it free of charge. But they did take like 3 weeks, but I was pleased cause in the end they did a solid job and it works proper.
I'm more of a PC user and I use my mbp only for iphone dev, but in the process I've grown hugely hugely attached to it. Everything just seems a hell of a lot more 'homely'. I use it to check my mail, structure my day, notes, music, mail everything just seems a lot more seamless. All in all, I think Lion is a pretty good O/S.
As for software, you can install pirated stuff on it; just like a PC.