I'm not really clear what that wine packaging is. I suspect it's wrapped it in a chroot, since I think wine in actual 64 bit is meaningless, isn't it? I mean, you can't run XP or win2000 in 64 bit. I'm not sure, though.
I'm working in a production environment which requires flawless and invisible networking between workstations(we use the "invisible" NFS for day to day work), highspeed and unfussy disk access(i.e. no defragging), a flexible grid-based farm, and fast response on the desktop. We tend to get fairly highend workstations so the latter isn't really noticable one way or the other. All new nodes that come online are 64 bit now, so we'll be mixing the two until all the 32 bit systems die, which unfortunately will be a long time(since there's hassles you need to deal with mixed grids).
As far as whether Linux x64 is better than Windows 64(and I assume you mean less hassle with buggy drivers), then I'd probably have to say yes, as a rule. You need to temper that with the reality that most hardware is designed to work with Windows, so there's obviously more hardware that's MS supported than Linux, but those that are linux-friendly(and there's a lot) have had the 64 bit drivers around a bit longer. Win64 is relatively new, Linux has been doing it for quite some time.
Will you notice a better system, somehow, by installing 64 bit? Almost certainly not. Essentially it tends to give you very slightly less memory to use, you might get *ever* so slightly faster response on the desktop, and you'll be able to install huge amounts of memory, should you need that sort of thing usable by a single process. Otherwise, you'll not really notice it, and frankly there's lots of hassles with things like browser plugins and java. You will have a lot less headaches running 32 bit. You will notice a far more intense speed increase running multiple core systems over going 32->64. Of course, the latest workstations we're getting are both, which is sweet for us. I just started using a dual cpu/quad core system and it's rather mind-boggling, watching those 8 64-bit cores rip away at things. My only regret(and learned lesson) is to get more memory.
It's changing every month - eventually standard releases will be x64, 32 will be the exception and typical compilations will match that so there won't be the problems of "why can't I watch movies in my 64 bit browser with my 32 bit movie player?". I can hardly wait.
The SUSE/MS conspiracy? I guess I've got too much work to do to give a shit. MS isn't the dragon and Linux isn't St. George. No-one's going to slay MS. You need to co-exist. That's not saying they'll not do things down the road that won't piss me off, but right now the biggest pain in the arse I get in dealing with Linux are the holier-than-thou Stallman/BSD religious fanatics that are driving Linux into the ground. For example - Mozilla decided to copyright the "Firefox" name. Those bastards! So what does BSD do? They'll offer Firefox...sort of. But they rename it to "IceWeasel".
It's like a bunch of 10 year old boys. Linus has it right - make Linux better, more stable, and more usable. Don't cripple things with politics. Don't obsess with MS as the "enemy". Offer an alternative. Work your ass off to make it attractive. Don't be a fanboy.
Not everyone needs to do the sort of stuff we do, so they'll probably find it easier to run Windows. It can be a blast, though, to play around with Linux. SUSE just tends "to work", as a rule.
DT