Mid-2012 MBPs have the nice bonus features that (a) you can actually upgrade them and (b) matte screens were still available.

I was using a late 2011 that I had outfitted with 16GB of ram and a larger SSD, save for the screen, it performs comparatively to the latest models. Now, its graphics just went bad and Apple now considers it "vintage" and won't fix it. I assume the 2012 models will suffer form that fate soon as well.