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If I buy a lot of ram for my new iMac (16GB), is there a way to make the system cache my most frequently used applications so the launch time is much faster?

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It's an oversimplification, but this is essentially what Unix does with its memory in the first place. If you don't shut down your computer and don't close your apps, your most frequently used apps will always be in memory ready for you to use. Apps you don't use will get swapped to disk (assuming you ever run out of RAM :-)

In Lion especially, you can almost forget about quitting apps by hand.

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So, if I buy 16GB of memory, will I notice a big improvement with my basic apps? Chrome/Photoshop? Sometimes I notice a little chugging when I do a cold start. I have no control over which apps are cached right? – Ryan Aug 15 '11 at 21:02
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I find Chrome a bit sluggish at start, but I don't think that's load time but rather some cache cleaning. I think the key is that it's a Mac - you should rarely have to shut down for anything except Software Update. If you want crazy-fast load times, an SSD drive is what you want. – zzz Aug 15 '11 at 21:05

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