Forget 32GB, looks like 128GB RAM laptops have just arrived:
https://www.theverge.com/circuitbreaker/2018/6/13/17458712/l...
https://www.theverge.com/circuitbreaker/2018/6/13/17458712/l...
I'd take a MacBook Pro a pound heavier and several mm thicker in order to have more RAM.
I'd also gladly accept 5 hours of battery instead of 10 (or 2 instead of 4) when 95% of the reason I want a laptop instead of a desktop is not to unplug entirely but to shuttle it between home, work, the coffee shop, my desk, the couch, etc.
It used to be that enough of Apple's customers were using their computers for workstation-class workloads (photo and video editing, software compilation, data processing) that there was good reason to provide us a workstation-class portable, not just a notebook-class ultra-light (which even the MBP counts as by my standards).
You'd think that now that Apple is making such inroads in enterprise and needs developers on their platform to support the iOS App Store that they'd see the value in continuing to make such a machine available.
So basically, an old unibody Macbook Pro could achieve that. Even though I left Mac, that unibody design is probably my favorite laptop form factor ever. It balanced size and functionality (and end user expandability) perfectly. The only time you needed a dongle was if you were going to hook it up to an HDMI/DVI/VGA monitor. Otherwise everything was self contained.
Also, the latest generation of MBPs is thinner and lighter than the original retina display versions. You might be able to get passable battery life with the higher-energy-consumption chipset that apparently is necessary for >16GB if they just went back up to the old retina form factor.
"Pro" on the laptop line no longer has the same meaning as "Pro" on the desktop line.
It used to mean "workstation class" on both lines. "Workstation class" meant that you had more upgradeability and performance options. "Pro" as it relates to Macbooks simply means "premium". There's nothing wrong with premium, the Macbook Pros are still very performant, but you're going to lose the people who put high value on what "Pro" used to mean for Apple laptops.
If you look at Dell, Lenovo and others, they offer "workstation" class laptops for their "pro" markets. They're not the highest volume sellers, but they don't alienate any of those users by forcing them to switch to their "premium" business laptops.