This is misleading.
If you look at Intel's motherboards for Sandy Bridge CPUs - 8 out of 10 have USB 3.0. Two micro-ATX boards don't have it, although four other micro-ATX boards do have USB 3.0.
In other words, all Intel Sandy Bridge ATX motherboards have USB 3.0, and USB 3.0 is available on an Intel board in every form factor.
There's a big difference between testing in a secret lab with a few prototype devices, and field testing with a range of production devices and environments. That's what I meant by can't possibly have been tested to any realistic degree.
It's a hack in the sense that a dual-purpose port is good for some things, bad for others.
Consider that you have your mDP monitor connected, and you want to connect your Thunderbolt array. Unplug the monitor, plug the drive into the mDP port, plug the monitor into the array. Add another drive - unplug the monitor again, add 2nd drive, reconnect monitor.
Now, remove the first drive. Oops, can't do that without unplugging the second drive - this could mean a shutdown/restart, or at least dismounting the second drive.
And what if you have a new Apple monitor that's a thunderbolt device (an mDP monitor with Thunderbolt devices - like USB/card readers, disks (think of an Imac without a CPU, just a board with a bunch of PCIe devices)). If you unplug the monitor, all those PCI devices disappear. Or, you can go behind the monitor and daisy-chain the drive off the Thunderbolt port on the display. (I assume that Apple wouldn't put the port in a convenient location on the front or side.)
Much of the hassle here comes from daisy-chaining, so lets put a couple of more Thunderbolt ports on the laptop. Now it becomes wierd. Are the two new ports Thunderbolt-only (no DisplayPort signals). Do you now have three identical ports, but your monitor only works in one of them?
Or, the USB 3.0 spec timeline didn't work for Intel's multi-year chipset development schedules. Or, after the USB 1.0 mess, Intel wanted the spec to stabilize in the wild before embedding it in the core silicon.
The fact that all Intel Sandy Bridge ATX motherboards have USB 3.0 doesn't exactly mesh with "trying to de-rail" USB 3.0.
Welcome to the bleeding edge - particularly with a non-locking connector that might have hot-plug issues.
First, AidenShaw ... you're a respected and knowledgeable poster on these boards!!
So with regret I'll try to rebuttal.
1) A dual-porpose port is NOTHING bad.
- PCI, PCIX, or IDE had no issues being dual purpose as internal expansion cards on desktops for over a decade for some: MIDI, PCI, or USB1.1/2.0/3.0 recently eiter all individuallly separate or in some combination or another. THAT is the way desktops have worked for years ... nothing new here - just your fear of mDP with PCI connection as another layer = Thunderbolt.
2) Daisy chaining Thunderbolt is NOT a big issue as you described in your diatribe paragraph above.
USB1.1/2.0 was quite capable of daisy chaining - power requirements for 5 connections per hub cause issues - but it was done. Firewire 400/800 solved issues that you describe by adding more than one external HDD ...
1 is direct to the MBP> then to LCD> then to 2nd HDD. Remove the LCD daisy-chain the 2 external HDD together then LCD as the final connection. Recall that Apple has had PERFECT LCD - external LCD drive recog since the dawn .. you know those 11" LCD's - they JUST WORKED - I know because I did this first hand with a PowerBook 3400CS and an 11" LCD by Samsung/LG. no issue.
There is no issues with putting more than one ThunderBolt port on a MBP ... just power requirements which is a correlation to how USB works.
Apple will do just fine with Intel's help - pushed by Dell/etc for external hardware ... 1 already exists for online purchase using the ThunderBolt port.