The Pro hardware will have been setup in advance, but the pricing will be done very close to launch, and the launch was a couple of months after he left.

The MacBook that was a MacBook and then a Pro is a much more telling example, which you skipped over. A reverse-face like that after Jobs's return shows pretty clearly that they'd got it wrong in his absence.

iOS 3 brought the universally derided striped icons, which sounds like a minor point, but is actually the sort of attention to detail Jobs brings.

There's plenty more like that in there, but I don't think there's much value in such aesthetic quibbling. My overall point is that there was undoubtedly a difference in Apple's direction and approach during that time, and I don't think it was for the better.

EDIT: Cor, that's a lot of upvotes. The consequence is that Jobs now contributes so little to this perfectly humming Apple that he can leave abruptly amid a medical crisis and they don't make a mis-step? I don't buy it.