What makes all these rumors pretty unbelievable for me is the loss of MagSafe. I can't believe that Apple would drop MagSafe.
I could believe some sort of MagSafe USB/TB connector that charges the MacBook and all the USB, DisplayPort etc ports on the power brick. That would actually make some sense because most of the time when you're using peripherals you're also sitting at a desk with the charger plugged in.
Do I think it's a good idea do drop all the ports? No not at all, it's idiotic even. But I can see Apple doing it, unfortunately. But leaving out MagSafe? No way.
I can see myself getting it, to be honest.
With haswell offering all-day battery life for the typical user, I could theoretically leave my laptop charging overnight, and leave for work with it at 100% and not need to charge it until later at night. It would be like an iPad in that regard - how many people actually use a tablet while it is plugged in? And if you don't need to be charging your laptop in a public space, the importance of magsafe decreases dramatically. After all - why isn't there magsafe for iPhones and iPads?
I also rarely ever use the ports or external storage, rely primarily on the cloud to move my files around. I could also envision using airdrop to pass stuff around?
In this regard, it would be like 2008 all over again, when the 1st-gen MBA challenged conventional wisdom as to what was deemed "necessary" in a laptop by doing away with features like a cd-drive. Sure, people complained, but they eventually found ways of working around these limitations. And found that they actually didn't miss those features all that much.
I think this slimmed down MBA would be for users who especially value portability and don't mind paying the ultimate price for it. I would appreciate being able to walk around with my laptop and not have to also carry around the power charger.
The only concern is for when I need to occasionally connect to a projector. But otherwise, I can certainly see a market for it.