The Bottom Line
Apple has done really well with products such as the iPod, iLife, and Mac OS X to make computers easier, more reliable and fun. iWork is addressing a missing element: productivity. It has introduced two tools, Keynote and Pages.
Keynote is certainly the stronger tool and worth the $79 you will pay. Pages is good, but I will still end up using Microsoft Word because Pages really wants me to make my words more beautiful than I need them to be (remember, I am just a humble writer). I am also a creature of habit, and Word lets me get the job done. In addition to the two products in iWork, I feel that Apple has left out other products. In WordPerfect and Office you get at least a worksheet tool and sometimes a database tool in addition to a word processing tool. I do not expect Apple to get into the database market, but I do expect an excellent version of Excel.
The bottom line for iWork is really this: If you do presentations, you need to check out Keynote 2, you will fall in love with the product. If you do not do regular presentations, you might want to hold off until iWork is fleshed out with more products. It is a good tool, but it is not a great tool in the way that iLife is. There just needs to be more than two products to meet the average needs of office users.