You *could* try Pages. Not free, but iWork (Pages and Keynote) isabiword still much cheaper than Office, especially with the student discount.
By the way, like MS Office and NeoOffice, Abiword is probably not a universal binary, which is probably why its performance isn't so great yet. I've seen it work fine on a Mac Mini. If I used word processors at all, it would be my first choice on any platform, and I do use it to opening the documents people send me. I create all my documents in LaTeX, so the free editors and compilers for most systems I'd ever need to use are obviously in abundance.
Also, there's always
Nisus Writer, which, a quick check reveals, is already available as a fat binary. It isn't free, though.