I get little hints of Apple losing it's finesse. The plugs are on either side of the new MacBooks, a detail that Apple previously didn't miss. And two Thunderbolts? Does anyone here actually have a thunderbolt device?
My MacBook Pro from about 7 years ago has ports on both sides, and the optical drive slot in the front. More recent ones have the ports on the left side and the optical drive on the right. I think Apple just moves them around to match the constraints presented by the components inside the machine.
Having a USB port on each side is nice, IMHO. For example, I have a pair of external speakers where the right speaker connects to the USB port, which is a bit awkward when you only have USB ports on the left side of the laptop.
I think they might be trying to use Thunderbolt to replace the Mac Pro. It doesn't fit all use cases, but the new MBP with a Thunderbolt display and external drive array would get pretty close for many users.
