Yeah, they have a functional reason for what they do. Whether or not it was a real problem that needed to be solved is probably somewhat debatable though. I'm not convinced that the real functional reason for the design isn't more along the lines of "what can we do to make the mac pro as hard to tinker with on the inside as an imac is?"

After doing more reading, I'm also not as confident in what I said I thought the starting price point would be. I'm now thinking significantly higher, maybe around $4k. There's some stuff in there that's pretty pricey.

Also a little odd for Apple to announce something like this so far ahead of when you can actually buy it. Normally when they announce computer hardware, it's available to buy right now.

(And I agree with another comment someone made, a little disappointed no retina display on the 13" air. Although I'm still tempted to get one to replace my older macbook that I use periodically.)