I'd seen the deal on amazon while price-comparing, but I didn't realize how much of a deal it was until I read your post because I hadn't been investigating upgrading the processor or SSD (I'd been trying to decide between base model and base+16GB RAM). Thanks for being so excited about it, because I went back and looked at it again. Even though I didn't "need" the updates, it was about $250 more than the base model with the education discount and tax, so I ordered it right before bed: just couldn't pass it up! When I woke up this morning, it had sold out.
So thank you again!