@Kustardking
You're of course quite right that I've only used the Air for a very limited time. I have been using it mainly for iPhone development and unlike my aging regular Macbook Core2Duo 2.4 this machine is small enough to use on the tube. I have not tried to push it to its limits in any sense, it runs Photoshop Elements just fine but I haven't installed Logic on it (which I guess would be pushing it).
To me this is in many ways the best computer I've had, mostly due to the small size and it being my first flash-memory machine.
I think I see where you're coming from but while I can see you have reasons for complaining about Apple it seems obvious that the kind of performance you're requesting can't really fit into an Air-size form factor... just yet.
Haven't Apple always been about benefits rather than specifications?
Yes, but in the past they have a least had a window ajar somewhere that let you do what "needed" to be done. For example, I haven't bought a new Macbook Pro since it lost the Expresscard slot. I had an Expresscard-to-external-full-sized-PCIE housing, from which I ran a RAID card. That made it a very usable desktop replacement. Yes, they kept the slot in the 17" machine, but that sucker is WAY big.
Now, forgive me for this association, but take this wikipedia excerpt on the "To Serve Man" episode from the Twilight Zone, and replace Kanamit with Apple, and the flying saucer as the Macbook Air. Are there any other Mr. Chambers in the room?...
Synopsis
The Kanamits, a race of aliens, land on Earth and promise to be helpful to the cause of humanity. Initially wary of the intentions of such a highly-advanced race, even the most skeptical humans are convinced when their code-breakers begin to translate one of the Kanamit books with the seemingly innocuous title, To Serve Man. The code-breaker staff is led by Mr. Michael Chambers.
Sharing their advanced technology, the aliens are quickly able to solve all of Earth's greatest woes, eradicating hunger, disease, and the need for warfare. They even morph deserts into big blooming fields. Soon, humans are volunteering for trips to the Kanamit's home planet, which is supposedly a paradise.
Everything takes a turn for the worse, however, when Pat, a code-breaker, discovers the Kanamits' true intentions. She shouts the agonized warning to Chambers, who is about to climb the Kanamit spaceship's boarding stairs: "Mr. Chambers, don't get on that ship! The book... To Serve Man. It... it's a cookbook!" Chambers tries to get away from the spaceship, but a Kanamit pushes him into it, and it promptly takes off for the aliens' home planet.
In the end, Mr. Chambers (who's been narrating the story in flashback) is aboard the Kanamit spaceship, heading for their planet and eventual consumption. The book, To Serve Man, is actually a cookbook, and all the aliens' gifts were subtle methods of causing humans to be put in peak condition, gain weight and become complacent, much like fattening pigs, chickens, or cows before they're shipped to a slaughterhouse. Chambers says to the audience, "How about you? You still on Earth, or on the ship with me? Really doesn't make very much difference, because sooner or later, we'll all of us be on the menu...all of us." The episode closes on him as he finally breaks his hunger strike.
