The new Macbook is a waste of a product line. It's a **** computer attached to a beautiful screen that is too expensive. They could have simply updated the Air, a far more competent computer, with a Retina display and it would continue to be the greatest laptop of all time.
I have no idea what they were thinking. And now this has me concerned that instead of making the Air a more capable yet still very transportable laptop, they'll make it stupid light and stupid dumb for no god damn reason.
Its the iosfication and streamlining of their Mac brand of products. Many users don't mind how simple todays tech can be. I have a friend who bought an Ipad for his photography work and uses the SD card reader adapter. It also helps that a lot of people especially the average non apple Power user is pushing toward cloud and wireless pretty quickly.
Its not just from a hardware level but Apple has killed off most of their power user apps and have simplified all their apps, and left all their pro apps with the exception of Final Cut to die.
That said the Macbook is a damn good looking machine, and apple is banking on how sexy it looks and the color schemes too sell the device which it will. Expect this to replace the Macbook Air within the year and their just be two products in the Macbook line. The Macbook which needs expensive add-on's for ports and the expensive Macbook Pro which will be at a premium.
Apple wants to be a lifestyle/Luxury brand and its evident by their current product line and look. They're great looking products but apple has given up any protest of wanting the lower end of the market. (which ironically would do much more to push Healthkit and Researchkit forward).
As for your talk of beefing of the Air, my guess is that was their initial plan plan was to beef up the Air and have it be the flagship model, however once the 5c flopped Apple backtracked and went another route. If the 5c would have been the successful my guess if we would have gotten a plastic multi-color macbook for $799-$899 to complement their product line.
I'm mostly surprised that we didn't get any major update on the Apple TV.