Honestly apple has every right to reject your claim, since you removed the optical drive. I would have done the same in their position. Warranties have terms and condition, and I don't know how you can say "apple doesn't care about pro users" when you clearly violated those terms. A real "pro" user would have taken out the data doubler before taking the machine in for servicing, it doesn't really take all that long to do.
On a funnier note...why is it that because the laptop has the word pro in it, people extend that title to themselves. They are not doing anything that couldn't be done on a $200 acer