I use Office 98 on my clamshell and find it to be a fine software product. I've never had any issues with it over the years I've owned it.
I don't have 2001 (I've thought about getting it since it came out but never have). In general, think of the improvements made in Office 2000 on Windows if you're looking for differences between the two. Office 98 is the equivalent of Windows Office 97, but it's a lot more stable than Office 97 (especially Word 97) was. (I find Office 2000 to be very stable on the Windows side).
Make sure you use AppleWorks alongside Word if you have a bunch of older, non-MS files to convert. Word 98 has a lot of translators, but it can't handle a lot of the older Mac stuff (e.g. MacWrite Pro). To me, this is the only drawback of the program.
I don't have 2001 (I've thought about getting it since it came out but never have). In general, think of the improvements made in Office 2000 on Windows if you're looking for differences between the two. Office 98 is the equivalent of Windows Office 97, but it's a lot more stable than Office 97 (especially Word 97) was. (I find Office 2000 to be very stable on the Windows side).
Make sure you use AppleWorks alongside Word if you have a bunch of older, non-MS files to convert. Word 98 has a lot of translators, but it can't handle a lot of the older Mac stuff (e.g. MacWrite Pro). To me, this is the only drawback of the program.