4gb is not laughable and its pretty standard. most users wont even need anything more than 4gb
my 2006 hp desktop used 1gb which was standard. some were using 512mb of ram at the time LOL
I'm not even a power user and 4GB in my L2009 Mini running Lion Server I have 150MB of free memory right now and have 5.5GB of page in/out. I have 8GB of RAM siting on my desk waiting for me to get the courage to open the Mini up. That or I'll take it to someone to install the RAM for me. So when I got my E2011 MBP i7 I stuck 8GB in it within a week.