I agree but then disagree. Most people would like to get their holiday shopping in early, as early as the beginning of November. Keep in mind, many do not solely have an Apple product or computer on their holiday wish list. This is why Apple would release their products before the big holiday rush, as they would have a better chance at securing the sales of many holiday buyers. Given the premium price tag of most Apple products, this makes the most financial sense, as it would be better for prospective buyers to stagger their purchases, instead of "breaking the bank," in one small period of time. Also, you must remember that economic times are rough, and people can't afford to spend a great deal of money all at once. This is why Apple must release their products in October, otherwise, they battle for hard-earned consumer dollars against every other item on an individual's wish list. Apple will lose the computing spotlight against the armada of Windows 8 devices arriving this Fall, if they don't beat them to the punch. This is exactly what they did with the iPhone 5; they released it ahead schedule and before their competitors' press events, to garner as much publicity for better sales, instead of once again, vying head to head with other competitive smartphone makers (e.g., Google, Nokia, Samsung, HTC, etc.). We shall see...October...or nothing.
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I don't know if I would consider storage size a clear advantage because remember, the 2TB HDD in the iMac is more prone to hard disk failure because of "moving parts." In addition, the SATA SSDs of the iMacs are inferior to the flash storage SSDs of the MBPs, which are known to have faster read and write times. I think if Apple presented more SSD options in the iMac at competitive price points, then we would "clearly" have an advantage. How I see as it currently stands, the present iMacs do not.
