[Wine] Wine for the End-user?

[searbe at googlemail.com]

I've been watching Wine for about a year (well, checking back and
reading updates) and progress all seems to be looking really good. I'd
love to be able to use Linux, but firstly my applications won't run on
it, and secondly the whole operating system seems a little overwhelming
to me - especially with having to type in text commands every now and
then to do complete commands that are a few clicks away in Windows
(simply installing FireFox proved mission impossible for me). I guess I
should invest in a Linux book to get me started!

Anyway back to the point, Wine seems to be getting towards a 1.0
release... I was wondering if that means 100% (or at least a high
percentage) compatibility with applications? Will applications be able
to run on wine out-of-the-box? How about games, are you expecting brand
new games to run out-of-the-box via Wine any time soon (or ever)?

Which brings me to another question, is Wine an end-user application?
Could someone like myself (inexperienced linux user, who could do with
reading a good tutorial or two) use it to run applications easily? Or
is this more likely to be found in a third-party Wine distribution at
some point?

I hope here's the right place to post this, and that it isn't a boring
couple of questions that have been asked hundereds of times before :-)

Craig