True, but the only thing that I really need a decent graphics card for is gaming.
I do that in Windows anyways. So my situation is a MacBook Santa Rosa + gaming rig or Mac Pro Penryn/SS.
I don't think that was necessary.
I don't know, I still think the MacBook Pro right now is really appealing, in terms of its combination of size and weight (especially relative to things like the almost 7 pound Asus G1S) and performance (since the 8600M GT with GDDR3 memory is still pretty much tops). Plus the LED-backlit screens.
But I assume there's something about it that doesn't fit your needs, since I saw you say Apple hasn't given you anything that gives you a reason to buy a Mac.
I think there's something to be said for just building/buying the dedicated gaming rig. I was actually getting ready to build a new PC (my old one was a Socket 754 system with an AGP 6800GT, so starting to get long in the tooth), but I ended up buying a clearance Velocity Micro system from Best Buy (was originally $2099, but was marked down to $1199 because they were clearing out old stock. At $1199 it was impossible to pass up (E6700 C2D, 2GB Corsair RAM, eVGA superclocked 8800GTS 320MB, Lian Li case, Asus P5N-E SLI 650i motherboard), as it was cheaper than just buying the similar components I was looking at using to build my new rig.
But I think I made the right choice; I've found that I just don't like using a laptop for gaming; you of course need to be near AC power, and somewhere where you can use a mouse. Invariably that is either at home for me, where I'd just as soon use a dedicated PC, or somewhere else, but those other places are simply not places I want to game. If I went to a lot of LAN parties or something I could justify it, but otherwise not.
So while I still think I might get a MBP anyway (at $1599 using my ADC Student pricing), it would more be for other reasons (the screen, the keyboard, etc.).
So I think there's something to be said for the dedicated custom gaming PC and a laptop for other typical stuff.