You make a very good point for the average Joe. With that many options, you better hope Joe has a tech savvy friend to make the recommendation, and that said tech savvy friend doesn't just say "get a macbook" because these days that's a perfectly good recommendation 99% of the time.

As a long-time Thinkpad owner, there are really only two answers for most tech-savvy users with typical needs (media, browsing, travel, and maybe programming): The X series and the T4XXs models.