But it presumably still lacked a TrackPoint, so how could it be the best laptop ever? ;)

This. Just moved back from my 2014 rMBP Pro to a 2012 Thinkpad X220 for the trackpoint and keyboard. Shame about the display but eh there are external FHD displays when you really needs to. Retina screen and trackpoint is going to be amazing when I upgrade to a X1 sometimes I guess haha.

Do you have an IPS display for your X220? It doesn't increase the resolution, but it does make it much better. (The X220 is pretty easy to swap the screen on too.)

No I don't, but I am looking to swap the TN display with a FHD IPS screen, as mentioned in [0], but sadly there are very few aftermarket kits around these days last I've checked.

[0] https://hackaday.com/2016/08/26/making-a-thinkpad-great-agai...

I have a couple of the FHD mods from here ( https://forum.thinkpads.com/viewtopic.php?t=122640 ), but they took quite a while to get to me, and by then my enthusiasm for experimental soldering had waned, but sometime I will try.

But even just swapping in an 1366x768 IPS panel for the TN panel of the same resolution makes a great difference. And those you can find fairly cheaply.

People were saying the exact same thing about the 2012 MacBook Pro after the Retina came out.

Well, the 2012 model was very nice. Also OSX of the era was bit better perceived than current ones, I think it was in some ways around the peak of OSX.

I think the point is more about people being so change-averse that it's basically impossible to take many of the "reviews" of new generations of Apple products seriously. Every time they roll out something new the universal consensus on sites like HN is that it's not just useless but actually has negative utility; it's the worst thing anyone has ever put on the market; if Apple ever does manage to sell any of this piece of crap they'll all be returned and exchanged for older models; Apple will be bankrupt within the year because they just don't understand how to make good things anymore!

And then a couple years later when the next next generation comes out, suddenly that worst-thing-ever-that-was-going-to-bankrupt-them turns out, actually to have been amazingly great and darn near perfect, so why did they go and mess it up!

Responding to you on a '15 MBP-- completely agree. Mine is still running like the wind, in great physical shape, and now sports a Big Lebowski sticker. What more could I want?

Agreeing with you on a 2015 i got new this February.