Not to be too stand-off-ish here but your 2 year old laptop probably doesn’t weigh 3 pounds, have built-in 802.11n, or run OS X natively, so as far as comparisons go its a little misleading. I’m personally pissed about the non-servicable battery in the fucking thing, but I digress…
Some oversights:
1. You have the option (though at $1200, I wouldn’t pay for it) to get a 64GB SSD drive installed instead of the 80GB 1.8″ SATA
2. Your laptop and the MacBook Air are in different classes entirely. Ultraportables are going to cost more and have less features. Look at Sony…
3. Who the FUCK would shell out 2 grand on a MacBook Air and still be using dialup?!
4. You can buy USB cellular modems (Sprint’s Sierra Wireless models are my favorite, EVO rev.A baby!) and don’t have to get a PCMCIA, ExpressCard or built-in option, so that’s mute.
5. Though it’s not my cup of teabags, I’m sure there are people out there who would seriously be interested in a model that is less complicated, and with the right (see: large) amount of money can have a 13″ dual core widescreen laptop with no moving parts.
You have to admit that some of the things you want in a laptop are detriments to others. And don’t assume that just because someone doesn’t want an optical drive on their laptop that they are too stupid to know what one is used for. You’ve stated pretty clearly that you fell that this isn’t your favorite Apple product released of late, and that’s fine. But the impression that I’m getting from your thoughtful response it that you feel that if something it negative to your computer needs then it should be marketed negatively.
e.g.
MacBook Air – It doesn’t even have an ethernet port…
MacBook Air – What’s a DVD?
Well, in response to that, the original iMac was built around simplicity and it sold very well. It pulled out the floppy drive and relied on a new and unloved port, that being the Universal Serial Bus (not really supported by many PC’s at the time), which is now the the calk of the walk. A lot a people (the computer savvy) were upset about the loss of the floppy and standard mac serial ports, but these changes brought the Mac to a usability and compatibility that Mac users pre-1995 wouldn’t even have dreamed of.
Honestly I can’t remember the last time I connected my laptop via ethernet (minus at work where it doesn’t move around). Maybe an all wireless device is the way to go, as long at the N speeds are satisfactory. At least you have the option of adding one with an adapter should you feel the need. When the serial ports were pulled out of Mac’s in the 90′s you had to buy serial to USB adapters too.
Sure, the marketing can get out of control, but that’s marketing, to sell you on it’s pluses. Even if some of its pluses are minuses to some.
In short:
It’s bad, but it’s not that bad.