I definitely find Tiger better - better Web browsing, faster, better functionality, and more up-to-date security updates and the like.
If you have less than 384MB RAM, or a CPU slower than 266MHz, I would say go with Panther.
The only other exception is that if you're installing Tiger on an unsupported machine, and you need to use XPostFacto, make sure you also install OS 9 on that machine. If the PRAM battery is dead, and there's a power outage or you unplug the machine for any reason, you'll lose XPostFacto's custom PRAM/NVRAM settings and the machine will boot into OS 9. From there you can launch XPostFacto and have it reboot into OS X - but of course if you don't have OS 9 installed it can be a huge PIA.
But otherwise I think Tiger is where it's at.
M
If you have less than 384MB RAM, or a CPU slower than 266MHz, I would say go with Panther.
The only other exception is that if you're installing Tiger on an unsupported machine, and you need to use XPostFacto, make sure you also install OS 9 on that machine. If the PRAM battery is dead, and there's a power outage or you unplug the machine for any reason, you'll lose XPostFacto's custom PRAM/NVRAM settings and the machine will boot into OS 9. From there you can launch XPostFacto and have it reboot into OS X - but of course if you don't have OS 9 installed it can be a huge PIA.
But otherwise I think Tiger is where it's at.
M