Nice post Jonty - I think that sums it all up pretty well
And as for the comic - excellent :>
I think I've been around laptops for long enough and demolished so many of them that I tend to get a feeling about how sturdy kit is, how many different ways they cram hardware into a small space and keep it all cool. There are laptops already as thin as the Air with better portability and better connectivity - the example I gave a couple of posts ago is an aging P3 - hardware has shrunk since then.
I can't stand watching people getting ripped off, and Apple personifies that dislike. When there's so much better around for so much less money you just have to wonder why so many people cut their nose off to spite their face "just because its a mac" or "just because it looks pretty".
I'm a lover of technology. Looking pretty has never, or at least very rarely had any input into the value and hi-tech of some hardware. If the hardware can't cover some of the major "what if's" then it's not worth the hassle.
Mind you, on a slightly different note :
El Reg posted a link the other week about certain Dell laptops giving people large shocks because of the aluminium palmrest. I receive a LOAD of these as returns/refits from Dell, and I've noticed a large increase in the amount of that particular palmrest being returned. Makes you wonder how thick these Dell engineers have to be to believe that the palmrest is soley responsible for dispensing shocks to users :/