Best post ever. I calibrate my monitor and use the ICC profiles for my Epson printer when I print and the colors look spot on. Some people simply need a reason to complain about something and to find fault.
Completely agree. People like to have a reason other than themselves to blame for their lack of quality in work. If you're doing it right, then you should have no problem.
I don't think that the issue is if the RMBP is perfectly viable which of course is. I think the question is how it compares with the regular new MBP which if I recall correctly is faster. In other words, is it worth to sacrifice the extra processing power for more pixels, or if it is worth to sell a previous macbook pro model to buy the new one.
In my humble opinion (disclaimer: I haven't seen or worked with the new RMBP) I don't think it is worth either of those two.
Honestly, I don't think the sacrifice is speed will effect photographers in the slightest, the processor and graphics card in it are MORE than capable of handling photoshop, if it had anything less than 8 GB of RAM I could see reason for concern. But really I can't say that I see any of that being a foreseeable issue. If you were trying to do more graphic intensive things and decent sized renders, then yeah, I can see where you would be troubled trying to run at full res, but for photographers who are primarily going to be running an editor, and maybe a organization program at the same time I see no issue there. Would I buy one right now? No of course not, I'll wait till next year when the retina display doesn't cost a super premium over a regular display.
My issue is that it is not adding to the desperately needed real estate, at least not at the intended resolution. Also the fact that the 17" is going away is a problem for a lot of photographers who rely on those machines on the road.
Then there is the obsession with design and flatness at the expense of disk space options and ports. I see no gain if the machine is flat (yet still bigger than it needs to be really) but I have to carry around a bag full of expensive adapters and external storage. True - I would probably do that anyway when on the road.
But again, I haven't seen or tried it yet - so maybe it works well at the 1600 or 1900 resolution. And in all fairness: this is not an Apple specific problem. My quest for a desktop AND laptop replacement with photography and audio production in mind started out when I realized how difficult it would be to find a replacement for my current laptop which works really well for photography. It's 1400x1050 in a 14" format and its color rendition is surprisingly good. It's actually my preferred tool, even when at home.
Problem is that given that it is 6 years old I was hoping to get something way better than this with respect to speed (no problem), HD size (problem) and screen real estate (big problem). I had looked at the MacBooks because they seem to be made really well compared to a lot of the WinPC laptops. Some aspects of those I like better than others (not a fan of the keyboard and the trackpad for example but that's a matter of taste and getting used to).
For photography I had hoped for an improved (meaning higer res) version of the matte 15" and 17" hi res screens. And I had hoped for two hard drives for both safety and space reasons. For comparison: even as a photographer who is more working a vanity business if you will 256 GB is completely out of the question. And no way to upgrade yourself. I'm running out of space with my current 750GB drive...
The size downgrades are a simple matter of because they can, and because why not, that's how everything is going these days, there is no reason not to go smaller if you can.
I don't see where you are trying to go with the storage argument, though. If you wanted to, you could easily throw a 2 TB drive in there and be done with it. But of course as time goes on, files keep getting bigger as cameras get better, with higher res, and better sensors capturing more data. If this were 3 years ago the thought of coming with a 768 GB SSD in a laptop, the computer would have been worth its weight in gold, and you probably would have questioned whether or not you needed that much space on your laptop. I also don't understand why you would want 2 HDs for safety. Are you not backing up to external storage? Do you really need to have every single one of your photos on your computer at once? These are the questions you need to ask yourself. You definitely SHOULD be backing up, because who is to say you won't drop your bag into a fountain while at a wedding and ruin everything? I think that is something that you should really take into consideration. I highly doubt that you take in more than 64 GB of photos at once either, especially on an every day basis, and even then the keepers from that 64 GB of photos will not even come close to that in terms of space.
Storage is completely upgradeable anyway, and you wouldn't be able to have 2 HD in a laptop in any form of RAID and gain storage either. You would have to have at least 3, which won't happen, at least for a while. So that is a moot point as well.
I'm also not trying to attack anyone here if that's what you think. I'm simply just saying, think it through. Honestly if you take away the updated screen, how is it really that different from any other laptop in this category that you would consider?
EDIT:
I missed the part where you couldn't upgrade storage. My mistake, regardless, back up to external, and good cloud storage. Cloud storage > anything else IMO anyway, don't have to deal with it being on your computer, can access it whenever you want, and if you get a good service you'll never have to worry about losing your data anyway.