It's the hardware and the fact that it's Unix. Seriously, the Macbook Pro is a beautifully designed machine. The only things that could compete with it would be

It's the hardware and the fact that it's Unix. Seriously, the Macbook Pro is a beautifully designed machine. The only things that could compete with it would be similarly priced Thinkpads etc, but you have to install and customize your OS on them. I agree that the OS X interface is overhyped but most of the problems you mention can be fixed in a couple of minutes. I use a free window manager to do basic manipulation and enabling the folder hierarchy view in Finder offers a better solution than the up-button. These are insignificant tweaks compared to what one would need to get a Linux desktop set up just so (although that has gotten easy enough to the point that it isn't a big deal for slightly technically literate users, but I still wouldn't install Ubuntu on my parents' notebook). But underneath the interface is good old BSD-flavored Unix. Macports is an okay solution for package management. That combined with iterm and vim is all I care about - all running on rock solid hardware.