Suggestions for a new laptop purchase

[Busy Lady]

I'm hoping you folks can help me fill my computing needs with a robust and reliable laptop. I have sucessfully purchased two, count them two, lemon laptops in a row. I have, in both cases, purchased rather expensive machines. It would not be so terrible, if I only used them for play. Unfortunately, these are my workhorse machines and my livelihood depends on them.

My needs are similar to "gamers" and I have usually purchased machines configured for the special needs of graphic-intensive games. A "good" color-true display is important to me. A rugged casing is less important, as I am careful with the hardware.

What I am normally doing--often all open at once:

Photoshop: Average 3 images open (average 10 meg each)
Captivate: Average 2 demos open (average 30 meg each)
Dreamweaver: 1 site open (between 5 and 10 pages in edit)
Access/VB Editor: 2 instances of Access for 2 Databases in development
Firefox (average 4 tabs)
Word: 1 or 2 documents

At any time, you can add one of the following:

Fireworks
Flash
InDesign
Illustrator
Premier
Project
Visio
Word
Snagit
Starburn
Etc., etc., etc.

What I don't need, but might be nice:

Fancy sound
BluRay
Web camera

Other preferences:

4 USB ports
Media card reader (Secure Data, for example)
200 GB Drive (although I have an external T-Byte, so it isn't necessary)
Option to "downgrade" to XP

Finally, I would prefer not to have to "pick" my parts from Alien or Northwest at the highest possible price. I have looked at those, and found myself quickly in the $4,000+ range. Can I get close to half that for a comparable machine?

Thanks for any advice you can provide.
Busy Lady deconstructed