I think that point is that if he were buying a MBP that it would not be able to justify the purchase to himself without maxing everything out. So that price comparison is really only applicable to him.
Right, but even then that's not a clear comparison. Maxing out a 15" MBP makes no sense for him--he bought a 13" MBA, so he clearly believed that 256 GB SSD + 4GB RAM would cover his needs.
Does he have to always max out his Apple equipment purchases?
I feel that it makes sense. When weighing the options I came to the exact same conclusion as the author, except my notebook is < 1 year old so I'm not actually upgrading soon, though I would like to shed weight.
If I were to buy a Pro it'd be the 15" for its resolution, and I definitely want 8GB of memory. However the 13" Air is compelling because of the size & weight. If it were available with 8GB of memory that would be the way to go, but it's not.
Personally I'm holding out for the 15" Air. Ideally with a faster CPU (Core i3 or i5 is fine), up to 8GB or 16GB of memory, and a resolution of 1680x1050. While I'm wishing it should also have a matte option. The Air is nice but it's not a portable workstation replacement, yet.
I think that the point is that if you can survive with a MBA with 4GB, then you can survive with a MBP with 4GB and just save the money. The same for the other specs that he was maxing out. He then went on to conclude that the lower specs meant that he might have to replace his laptop sooner, but the lower price meant that wasn't much of an issue. This side-steps the fact that if you lower the specs on the MBP you could say the same thing (lower specs == replace sooner, but lower cost offsets this).
No argument there. However as you start cutting things from the 15", driving the price down, it gets less and less compelling when compared to the 13" Air. The upgraded specs are the only reason to prefer the 15" over the Air at the same price, the Air is 1/2 the size & weight. Of course this is only my opinion, and it's merely a coincidence that I share it with this particular author. I'm not sold on the Air yet though, I think it needs a couple of iterations before it'll be a great Pro replacement and not just a passable one.
If you take the base 15" and add a 128GB SSD to make it as cheap as possible it's $1999. Unless you really care about the CPU, graphics card, optical drive, or FireWire (which I don't, but others do) you're paying $200 more for a larger, heavier machine. With less storage. If you add the 256GB SSD it's $2399, which makes it even less compelling. I'd rather put that $600 towards a 27" display and still have a 256GB SSD.
The only reasons for me to prefer the 15" are greater resolution or memory capacity, without those I only benefit for the faster CPU. Again this is very much my opinion and I don't expect everyone to agree. I'm not baffled that we disagree, people value different things based on their usage patterns.
