Yeah, I actually noticed the pricing on B&H last night! It's kind of funny because I buy a lot of my camera stuff from them because they're fast, reliable and they seem to have the best price in town...err...everywhere.
lol...thanks. Care to back that up financially?
Kidding. I appreciate the feedback.Yeah, just look at this thread. It's clear that I overthink things. That's why I wanted to hear some other people's points of view...in case I was pushing myself in the wrong direction for the wrong reason. The way I'm looking at it now, there's a workaround for most of my 'concerns'....
SuperDrive -- external accessory -- I never attributed much weight to it but I can live without it built in.
Storage -- slightly bigger internal HD and external back-up. I can live with 512 without fear for a while.
The key things I can't change after purchase that I 'may' come to regret are display quality (and size), speed of the processor, and speed of the storage, and amount of RAM.
Ironically, the element I was applying the least amount of weight to initially is the one that swayed me most towards the rMBP: speed. I've seen the standard screen MBPs and they're fine -- no comparison to the retina screens -- but they're fine. Would it bother me to have the lower resolution screen in the long run? Maybe. BUT, the one thing that definitely plagues me most as my computers get older is speed. So, I started thinking about that issue more closely, weighing benefits, etc. and when I increased the weight of that issue in my decision it made it a lot easier to let go of some of the other concerns.
That's consistent with what I've read. Flash has been nothing but a burden over the years even on my work PC and my wife's computer. I won't miss it.
-Eric