Difference Between Motor Boaters and Sailors
Anyone who has owned both motorboats, and sailboats can easily tell you that they are both great, it is just a matter of which type of fun you are looking to get into. So the key to knowing the difference between them, is to understand the fun parts about each.

Ski Boaters / Open Power Boats
I read somewhere that this is the most popular type of boat in the US. Small enough to fit in the garage or side yard of the average house, these boats somewhat resemble an open top car that you drive on the water. Get a couple of friends together, and you can zoom around the lake towing skiers. When you are ready for a break, drive over to that beach with a cluster of other power boaters so you can go mingle with the crowd. The fun in this type of boat is easy to see, all sorts of adrenaline from bouncing around on the waves and dangling from a rope as you ski behind. Plenty of social interaction, especially if you have bikini clad friends along. They are realatively affordable to buy and operate. Simple as a car to use, just fill up with gas, turn the key and steer with the wheel.

Cabin Cruisers
For exercise, I used to paddle a kayak really early in the morning at Lake Conroe. I would start off at the free ramp at the end of FM 830, and paddle out around the light house, to the island and back. Sometimes the island would have a number of cabin cruisers anchored around the perimeter with families that had spent the night. Sometimes there were ski boats pulled up on the beach with a couple of tents near by. This one time I paddled to the island, there was just a single ski boat, but no tent, and no crew to be seen anywhere. My first thought is that she had broken free from her mooring lines at one of the many marinas and washed ashore, but upon getting closer I could see her anchor lines and that she was secured. Sitting in my kayak down on the the water, I could see into the boat. When I came up close enough, I spoke a gentle "ahoy there" to see if anyone was home. Slowly from the forward seating area, a head arose. He looked in his mid 20's, with that sleeping bag hair, half of it flat, the half on the other side sticking straight up. We chatted for a bit, he liked sleeping on the water, but couldn't afford to get a cabin cruiser yet, so he was using what he had. I made a joke that surely when he got the cabin cruiser, he would be able to lure a girlfriend to go with him. He replied "Oh I've got my girlfriend with me, she is still asleep on the floor back there", pointing to the stern. So there is my full understanding of why people could really enjoy cabin cruisers, so your girlfriend can have a comfy bed to sleep in, and a private place to use the can.

Bass Boaters / Center Console-ers
My good buddy and next door neighbor Dean. There isn't a fish alive that hasn't heard of him, he has wrangled just about every type of fish known to the sea, except I don't think he has caught one of those dinosaur fish yet, but they don't reside in the lone star's waters. So I would often wander over to his driveway to see what wasn't released that weekend. He had all sorts of catch and would rattle off lots of interesting information about each type of fish: their habitat, how to spot their habitat from charts, feeding habits, best fishing rigs to use etc. Which brings up the question, after amassing so much knowledge, at what point do you qualify to be an ichtheologist? So Dean's boat was a bass boat in all sense of the term. He has rocket launchers full of various fishing rods, tons of tackle boxes scattered about in the many lockers, a live well, and electronics to detect & analyze everything underwater. The hull is rather short and flat, coated with CCA stickers and a huge honking engine on the stern. She has but one main focus in her design, that is to get there NOW. When Dean wants to head to another secret fishing spot, he sits down behind the wheel and is up on a plane, flying in that direction. The fun here is obvious - spend more time fishing, which is a ton of fun.

Sailors
From a power boaters perspective, why would anyone want to go sailing? It seems rather slow with top speeds around 6 mph. Well, a bulk of the answer lies in a joke:

A sailor was sailing across the bay, when a power boater was zooming along near him.
The power boater yelled "I'll race you there" !!
The sailor replied "I am already there".

Experienced sailors mostly tend to enjoy sailing for the relaxing feeing you get when sailing. It is hard to describe, but when you are out there with your sails pulling you along, you fit into a groove with mother nature. It is about becoming fluid with mother nature, instead of trying to beat your way through. Sailing also has a mechanical and technical aspect to it which gives sailors an apreciation of their hobby, as opposed to power boating which is similar to driving - all you really do is get in and turn the key. To make a sailboat work, you need to understand how the parts function and play them like a musical instrument. The parts are all very simple, just a few bits of line and some dacron cloth for your sail. And playing them isn't that hard either, for the most part it is pointing the boat in the direction you want to go, and pull on the lines till the sails stop flapping. But when you pull the lines just the right way, and hold the tiller in the right position, you can travel anywhere you want without stopping for gas, even to the end of the world.

Remember that all boating is good, just some types of boating is different than other types. And there is nothing wrong with having several boats, so far I haven't detected animosity or jealosy between any of mine.