Honestly? You can do better than that... Because you've noticed that one underpowered macbook is running final cut you're concluding that apple stores arent a beacon of innovative costumer service? Listen to yourself.. It made me cringe.
That was one example. And it's a critical mistake as much as you don't believe it and as much as I make you cringe.
A potential customer walks into an Apple store, clicks open FCP and the thing just stalls there for minutes. I did it next to an Apple employee who was clearly embarrassed. We had force quit FCP and then just moved on to a more powerful iMac. What message does that send a new user? That either FCP is not going to run on their computer or that Macs in general are slow. Apple Stores are set up as a place to experience Apple. If your first Apple experience is like that one, you're not going to come out impressed.
The solution is simple: different install images for different hardware. Don't install FCP on a MacbookAir for example. Use the iMac's and the lone Mac Pro in the store for that. This isn't a local store's error, it's coming from the top. Right now, there is nobody at the top.
Apple has always been about thinking through the details and their retail reflected that. With its growing popularity, Apple has failed to keep up. They've lowered their hiring expectations and failed to adjust the details to new realities.
If you want more examples...
Untrained Apple employees are now the norm. It used to be that you could walk into an Apple store and get an answer about any of Apple's apps or hardware products. I've recently been looking for solutions for a photography and video setup. I've spent upwards of $10K on this project. From RAID drives to control peripherals for Aperture and Final Cut. Each time that I've genuinely needed help from a specialist, I have not gotten any good answers. Nobody seems to know anything about Aperture (I've been to 4 different Apple stores while shopping around for solutions) and when I inquired about RAID, I had 3 employees around me trying to figure out how the LaCie 2Big drive worked, all of them basically reading the box or searching online. When I needed to know if a Wacom tablet could give me physical shuttle control for FCP or whether it would work in Aperture, nobody knew anything about Wacom tablets. This is not the Apple Store I remember from 4 or 5 years ago when I was setting up my previous work station.
It wasn't always like this. There's a reason why the Apple Store has become a model in retail. There's also a reason why Browett was fired. Ideally Ron Johnson would just come back (I'm hopeful) but Tim Cook needs to do something real quick because he's neglecting retail and that was one of the pillars set up by Steve Jobs that has lead to Apple's rise to prominence in the mainstream and its recent success. As such, it could also be its downfall.