and I find that a small first-aid bag makes a convenient carrying case, which when zipped up, is really "out of sight, out of mind".
I would suspect that on average, MBP users utilize the ethernet port less than 1% of the time (most probably never use it). For those few who do use it, an adapter will be available. It's more like removing the optical drive from the MBA, since some people do occasionally use optical drives, but the amount of use does not merit their inclusion as a built-in component if that inclusion compromises the design of the device.
Mac Pro? What's that?
Yes, for the majority notebook users, these are the most important specs. The computing power of most modern notebooks already exceeds the requirements for what most people do with them.
Are these bus-powered 2.5" drives? If yes, you simply are hitting the limit of the power supply. I can operate up to three 2.5" bus-powered drives on a FW port but sometimes they won't mount or only partially mount (or even unmount). For mounting it sometimes helps to connect them one at a time. But whether things work without problems depend on the precise power consumption of the drives (which varies from model to model) and the consumption varies a lot depending on what you ask the drives to do.
Yeah, wouldn't it be nice if our laptops had a (m)DP, a DVI, an HDMI, and a VGA port. No need for adaptors anymore.
You miss the point. The point is to have enough ports to satisfy the vast majority of users most of the time. The so-called 80-20 solution (not that it necessarily has to be exactly 80%). Did the lack of an Ethernet port really hamper the sales of the MBA? Doesn't look like it.
Not really sure why you feel the need to lodge personal insults, but my situation is a real world use scenario. I make my living using my computer making music and graphics. I sometimes have to use USB-2 because a drive will have both outputs, but my firewire 800 is already maxed out, so I will use USB. Plus many midi-controllers are usb-based.
