*sigh* How original: Buy now or wait?

[floobie]

I think for what you want to do, you made the right decision to buy now. My only recommendation is to go with the 7200 rpm hard drive. The current line of MBP's have only been out for about 4 months and at this time it is still only rumors when the new 2012 models will be available and whether or not they will be redesigned. USB 3.0 would be a very nice new "nice to have" but I wouldn't consider it a deal breaker at this time. Just my 2 cents.

Yeah, I'm definitely getting the 7200rpm drive. Upgrading my Macbook to that made a huge difference from the stock 5400rpm drive. I'll be going with the top end 15" with a 2.4 ghz i7 (the 2.5ghz version for an extra 250 bucks doesn't seem worth the price difference), 4 gb of RAM (I'm going to upgrade this to 8gb myself and save 160 bucks), the 750gb 7200rpm drive, and the 1680x1050 glossy display.

 

[J71]

Yeah, I'm definitely getting the 7200rpm drive. Upgrading my Macbook to that made a huge difference from the stock 5400rpm drive. I'll be going with the top end 15" with a 2.4 ghz i7 (the 2.5ghz version for an extra 250 bucks doesn't seem worth the price difference), 4 gb of RAM (I'm going to upgrade this to 8gb myself and save 160 bucks), the 750gb 7200rpm drive, and the 1680x1050 glossy display.

That is exactly what I bought! I also didn't think the 2.5GHz was worth the extra money either. I ordered mine from the Apple Online Store (with a discount through a web portal site where I work!) but it only took about a week to receive it.