I think you'll find yourself more than happy with the 5400 for now. I've got the 2010 i7 17" model that I picked up last august. Stopped in to Best Buy today just to see if they had any in. Both Mac resellers in Anchorage weren't anticipating delivery til next week sometime. Don't know why I did. But I did. Bought the new 17" 2.2/750gig/4g RAM. Essentially the stock 17. Compared even to my 2010...the snappiness is very apparent. I bought my wife the 11" Air a month ago, so I'm totally sold on the SSDs now...and eventually I'll put one in this new MBP. For now though, I'm really happy with it's speed. Seems at least twice as quick opening programs and just general computer workflow. Again, compared to my 2.66 i7 with a 7200rpm drive.
I figured I could add drive and RAM...the gpu is the same...just can't do anything about the processor, so I'm curious the real world speed differential between the 2.2 and 2.3 models. Where the cache size is a 30% increase over the 2.2...seems to me it's easily worth the 250 difference, especially considering the price difference retail is 50 bucks.
Also, it seems to me that the Apple BTO prices are much better this time around. The 256 gig SSD is a similar price at OWC...and the RAM for convenience sake doesn't seem to be as overpriced as we've become accustomed to over the last several years...IMHO. If you have patience and aren't as impulsive as I....doing a custom configuration for the higher end models seems viable and reasonably priced. Of course, ymmv.
I'm in the middle if installing Logic with music beds and sfx (no jam packs) after a complete install of FCP, and several key apps I need....Handbrake, Perian, VLC, Dropbox, Aperture, Pixelmator...and the entire microsoft 2011 Office suite. Current temps as follows: HD 34. CPU 40, CPU Heatsink 34, enclosure base...25, 28, 29...GPU 35, and Heatsink B 34. These temps have been constant all nigh with a fluctuation of +\- 2-4 degrees. All setup and updates. Mo gaming yet. But I'll be ripping some music and messing with the 64 bit Handbrake tonight. Also, with FCP I'm excited to transcode some Canon 5d2 and 7d footage to ProRes. I'll be comparing notes with my 2008 MacPro dual quad core 3.0ghz with 14gigs of RAM....how do I do those geek bench tests and cinemark/bench or whatever? Do these have anything to do with real world usage?
Smokin' little machine. I'm excited about this beast. It's awesome
Jer