You may call it 'older projectors', but it is the defacto standard. Any conference will make sure that at least VGA is available. It doesn't help of you show up

You may call it 'older projectors', but it is the defacto standard. Any conference will make sure that at least VGA is available. It doesn't help of you show up with display port and the conference offers DVI. I never had a female VGA connector fail. I wonder what you have to do to make that happen. Apple's thunderbolt-ethernet dongles are from a mechanical point of view an extremely poor design. If you expect problems with a VGA connector, expect those dongles and the port on your MacBook to fail way earlier. Don't get me wrong, it is perfectly fine if Apple offers modern connectors. It is just that some connectors, like VGA, RJ45, USB-A and 3.5mm jack are so universal that not offering them is just making lots of people suffer for no good reason. And as for those connectors being bulky, just use the opportunity to add a larger battery. It's a MacBook Pro, it can use all the juice it gets.