My impression from these reports is that Apple is planning to differentiate their laptops more strongly than they have been: there will be ones that place "thin

My impression from these reports is that Apple is planning to differentiate their laptops more strongly than they have been: there will be ones that place "thin and light" as a priority, and ones that place "give me more I/O, dammit" as a priority. If you want a high-performing Mac laptop that's thin and light and you don't care abort ports (hi, this is me), you can already get an M1 Air that has the same performance as the M1 MBP (and this is exactly what I did). The M1 Air is good enough that you're not really losing anything other than the perceived cachet of putting "Pro" on the nameplate. (Well, you are also losing the Touch Bar, but one can argue that's actually a net gain.) From these reports, the next revision to the Air is going to get a bit of a redesign, colors, faster CPU, etc., but "Air" is still almost certainly going to mean the line that prioritizes being thin and light. You will still have a Mac laptop that gives you what you want. But people who do want more ports will, for the first time since Mac laptops went USB-C, also get what they want. (Or at least get closer to it.)