Like the OP, I've been an "Apple watcher for 20 years", and it's always funny to seeing people harping on this Xerox transaction, while missing most of the actual facts.
For what's worth, Microsoft gave Xerox money too, and also hired key people like Charles Simonyi from PARC. So it wasn't exactly like the movie where Bill Gates was yelling "I got the loot Steve! I got the loot!"
Yep, that made for tv movie has really ruined the debates on how the event actually unfolded. It was a pretty terrible movie in a lot of ways and it got a lot of facts wrong.
Part of Xerox's paroblem suing Apple would have been that it got its ideas elsewhere too (e.g. Alan Kay "discovered" OO programming after reading the source code of a simula compiler; most of the GUI concepts came from Englebart's lab)
In return for the tour of Xerox PARC, Jobs gave Xerox the opportunity to buy Apple stock (100,000 shares for $1 millon). Xerox did make money on that.
However, Xerox never gave Apple any license for its technology. Eventually, after Apple sued Microsoft, Xerox sued Apple, but the lawsuit failed.[1]
[1] http://www.nytimes.com/1990/03/24/business/most-of-xerox-s-s...