All successful large scale companies like Apple, have internal conflicts between departments, its normal. They are in the business of making money. The engineers would say, no case. The sales and marketing people don't want to hear that. The retail store needs all the profit they can generate. The warranty department only cares that you make it thru the warranty period.
That's not evidence. It's speculation. I am not faulting your logic. Just pointing out that you have no facts to back it up. If correct, this would be a pretty significant claim.
If I told you the level of my education, the fanboys would be jealous and attack like children, calling names and such. Suffice to say I'm a professional in engineering. Why would I care if you fry your computer? But I do and I'm only trying to help.
The professional opinion is very much appreciated! But, regardless of your educational level or expertise (in fact, because of it), I think you'd agree that you need to back up these claims with testing or some other kind of evidence.
Look closely and you will see that Apple did not vent it. The heat radiates and is dissipated by the case and thru the keyboard. It's so thin it can barely circulate air. I'm not being critical, its just a fact. Enough said.
Actually, it does have a vent. It is located at the rear of the device between the lid and the main body. As I understand it, they also designed it so that heat would be discharged through the bottom of the device. I also agree that heat is designed to escape through the keyboard and probably out of the ports as well.
Despite the vents in the plastic cases (thanks Jazwire for pointing out the vents in the Speck), I suspect there is considerably less heat escaping than would happen under optimal caseless conditions. HOWEVER, this doesn't mean that the case is pushing heat levels beyond the design parameters and damaging the computer, as you suggested.
I have had the case for several days now. It does feel warmer. But, the fans rarely come on (a couple times earlier today when I did something stupid and managed to beach ball/crash a program). Given its performance so far, I doubt that it is overheating or being damaged.
I am not saying this to suggest any disrespect for your educational level or expertise, or question your goodwill here. I think that it might be better advice, though, to warn people about the risks of doing anything to block the vents or impede heat dissipation from other parts of the computer, especially if they are in a hot location doing intense work (perhaps they should not use the case if they are sitting at the poolside doing video editing of the movies they are taking of the beautiful people there). As long as they pay attention to the machine and make sure it stays relatively cool, then the case is not an issue. If you are inside in an air-conditioned environment, the risk seems quite minimal to me.
