Because laptops are a standard hammer for most organizations. Optimizing everyone into a standard laptop configuration saves money and time for the entire comp

Because laptops are a standard hammer for most organizations. Optimizing everyone into a standard laptop configuration saves money and time for the entire company. They don't need Xeon's to run excel. The CFO/CTO is looking at the macro picture. You are a subset of that organization. If your engineering director wants more powerful laptops, it should be up to him or her to work through the CFO/CTO to do it. Also some companies have a policy where the less the executives spend, the more money they get in bonuses. It's effective for management, but it sucks for you. Edited to add: Increased performance is a "soft" metric, in that it's hard to quantify. Costs are a "hard" metric, in that it's easy to quantify. Which do you think the CFO is going to look at when making a business decision?