> There are many 1.0GHz & 1.25GHz eMac's on eBay for even lower prices.

You ought to be careful when purchasing eMacs and shouldn't look only at the CPU clock. While the supported generation can have 1.0 (education market variant) or 1.25 GHz, these clock rates are no ample hint. Older generation with Radeon 7500 can also have 1.0 GHz, and last generation with Radeon 9600 can also have 1.25 GHz (education market variant).

> I was hoping that the team had written a driver for the 9600 & 9600 Pro video cards
> while working on the port to the G4 PowerMac models.

Apple never shipped a G4 PowerMac with Radeon 9600. The 9600 was released by ATI only after Apple introduced the last G4 PowerMac. But gfx card question can hardly be a problem regarding a computer where the gfx card is interchangeable. Thus even the last G4 PowerMac, which Apple shipped with Radeon 9700 (or some nVidia) card, may not require a complete Radeon 9700 (or even nVidia) driver to be supported regarding both 2D and 3D graphics. After gfx card change to a fully supported one, that is.
According to geit (*), MorphOS supports the Radeon 9600 in 2D mode. So MorphOS on the last eMac generation *should* work in 2D mode.

* http://www.amiga-news.de/de/news/comments/249647.html (German)