They don't need $500 leather jackets and whatnot, either, but the local cafe near me is full of them.
In the world of general ("non-technical") commerce, branding is very important.
And Apple has nailed that down, in spades.
Thought, the last year or two, I've seen more and more people with non-Apple ultrabooks and the like.
Personally, I don't like the latest changes to the Mac laptops. But Apple may indeed see where the broad, commercial demographic is going.
As for me, personally, I've long hated "giant" palm rests in front of the keyboard. Anywhere I cannot optimize my position/posture (i.e. desk at home), the front edge ends up pressing very uncomfortably into my wrists. And after decades at keyboard and managing to escape nascent RSI, I find this immediately and, increasing rapidly, extremely uncomfortable.
But, that doesn't seem to matter to most people. Again, I'm not the target demographic.
P.S. I should add that people also moved to Macs during a time where Windows machines were increasing sh-tfests of black-box breakage, malware, and frustration for the "average user".
And, as other people have pointed out while discussing this launch, Macs tend to "just keep working" for a lot of people a lot longer than Windows machines do. While providing a perception of "quality" and many hardware aspects that people have also found very attractive.
I don't know whether Apple has "lost it". But I do suspect that "developers" are not central to its product planning and marketing projections.