But I'll also say as a software engineer, the MacBook Pro 16 with an M1 Max is the best tool I've ever used for my work.
I dock into a thunderbolt setup with a couple high resolution monitors. I have docker running. Often multiple IDE instances with large codebases. Multiple Chrome windows with dozens if not hundreds of tabs. Zoom calls running screen shares. The machine barely gets warm and I never hear the fans. My prior work laptops would have been howling and begging for mercy.
I often forget that I leave applications running, only to remember later "maybe you should kill those processes". With past work machines, I'd routinely have to hunt for processes to kill to claw back CPU cycles and quiet down the spinning fans.
And then I unplug it from the dock and do all of this at the airport for a few hours. Still silent, cool, and performant. I've never seen anything like it before. And while it's not "thin and light" it's also not the heaviest workstation quality laptop I've ever used.
Not sure how this fits into your personal value propositions, but I can tell you I'd pay far more than I did for this quality of a machine.
I'd buy a MacBook Pro myself, sure - except I. need. a. forward-delete. key.
Sorry, but Fn+Backspace just isn't acceptable to me.
The frustrating thing is just how quickly value decays with Apple's pricing strategy.
When it comes to the Mac Mini/Studio, outside of some extremely niche applications, it really only makes sense to get base models. It is infuriating how much Apple charges for additional ram.