Apple's not learning from repeated mistakes in deciding to enter the thin wars, and I agree that it's a sign of trouble. Maybe the tech equivalent of the canary in the coal mine.
Apple used to rise above the spec wars, a domain of the PC crowd. "But ours has more megahertz and more RPMs," they'd say, to which Apple would rightly respond, "Who cares? Ours feels more responsive and offers a better user experience because of our integrated software/hardware and the beautifully functional ergonomics. Everyone from classroom kids to creative pros couldn't care less about geekbench and megahertz as they're having the best user experience there is."
I think you've capture that accurately. I often encounter that "spec sheet" mentality. It is only when showing a person what "underpowered" specs can do on macOS do they start to think differently. I'll whip out my 2014 4GB/128GB 11" MBA and show them how well it renders videos, runs VMs, handle 100MB+ graphic images... without breaking a sweat.
Even the non-retina display on the MBA causes them to take a second look because all they've heard is that any non-retina display is a pixelated blurry mess.
Fast forward. "Magazine reviewers want thin? We'll give them thin!!" says Jony Ive, no longer with Job's insight into the user to rein him in. So we now have phones that are so thin (at the expense of milliwatt-hours) that the camera absurdly protrudes out the back. We have laptops so thin the battery life curve is actually decreasing as battery demands are rising. We also have new laptops that you can't plug into new iPhones, new Apple TVs you can't plug into laptops if a software update bricks it, and not-yet-legacy peripherals you can't plug into new laptops without an array of dongles (which you must now buy à-la-carte).
Everyone's got a theory about what's happened in Cupertino, but something certainly has. Who knows if it would've happened had Jobs not died, but my gut says it wouldn't have, at least not this way. I'll still stick with Apple because, frankly, macOS is still better that the alternatives in my opinion, and everything flows from that. But I'm no longer as proud of my choice as I used to be.
What is happening with Apple would happen regardless of who is at the helm. It is the natural result of tremendous success. Hubris kicks in and then it's down from there. After a long period of success anyone can succumb to the error of thinking they are infallible.
The wrinkles that have appeared in Apple's product line over the past 2-3 years have been easily brushed off as "one-offs" but they indicate the beginning of the great decline. Fans will dismiss those hints, trolls will over-emphasize them. The decline is very slow and steady but then reaches a point when it drops over a cliff.
Apple is on that path. Absent a change in culture, they're still 3-4 years away from the precipitous drop.
As for sticking with Apple and macOS... they are on borrowed time with me. The current Apple desktop/notebook systems in our home are most likely the last (unless something changes). There is no way that I'm going back to Windows. I've been experimenting with Linux. I've found some terrific distros that can be drop-in replacements for our mac systems.
I can see loading Elementary OS on a nice 13" notebook for my wife. It is clean, simple, and stable enough for her to easily use without problems. I've been running Linux Mint 18 on a bargain basement Dell Inspiron 14. ($120 at Best Buy cyberMonday 2015). It couldn't run the Windows 10 that came preloaded, but it breezes with Mint. I can only imagine how well it would run on a medium-to-high quality notebook.
I'd much prefer that Apple get back on track to producing quality desktops/notebooks.
