Interesting. I've just taken a much closer peek at my MBP in an oblique light, and the same area is showing slightly noticeable signs of the paint starting to 'lift'.
As I said before, because I work with an external keyboard most of the time on this Mac I doubt I've spent any more than ten working days in total actually sitting in front of the unit itself (i.e. somewhere in the region of 10 x 2 hours of actually putting my hands on the keyboard) since I got it 8 months ago. At my rate I'll probably have the same problem as you to the same extent about 18 months down the line.
Like every other problem I've experienced with every Apple Computer product this year apart from outright failures and DOAs, it seems to be a case of inadequate engineering sense in the design process, or a disconnect between what the design team wanted and what the production team can achieve in real life. Many of my other non-Apple laptops have an overly polished look on and around the keyboard due to heavy use, but none have peeled - because it's ridiculous to put anything that is overtly prone to abrasion anywhere near the keyboard area, let alone the space key.
Perhaps Apple should take a leaf out from Dell's RoadReady program for the Latitudes... maybe if they could initially achieve CasualuseReady for a start, that would be nice.
