Machined unibody laptops aren't rugged hardware. They look nice, and are reasonably robust to minor wear and tear, but they definitely aren't "rugged". Put enough force info the body to bend it, and it's never the same again. A machined unibody like a MacBook offers no damping or shock protection to the boards inside.

Real ruggedized laptops, e.g. those sold by Panasonic or Dell, look very different. It's like the glass-versus-plastic question in phone screens. Glass looks nice, and withstands day-to-day abrasion better. But the stress necessary to shatter glass is way less than that of plastic.