2. the markup is often warranted. There's a vast difference between "business" laptops and "consumer" laptops. I can't speak for dell's precision line, but lenovo's thinkpads are leagues better (build quality, support, etc) than the consumer crap you get at best buy.
Razer is one kinda-exception that I can think of, where they have fairly solid laptops that can be more minimal, but the build quality is still not quite up to mobile workstation standards.
TL;DR I wish I could get a MBP with TOTL hardware instead of having even the highest-end config still shoot for thin-and-light.
But on the other hand, they are clearly thought more as "hybrids" than other gamer laptops: - The UEFI lets you decide if you want to enable/disable the intel chipset (Useful when you want to be sure everything goes to the GPU/want to use things that don't work well with NVidia's Optimus) - Lightweight and easy to put in a bag. Not one of those 5 inches thick laptops that weight 5 kilograms - The look is made not to scream "gamer laptop !". - Wide configuration range for a single chassis.
Also not that expensive, even for consumer-grade standard. Got one with i7-9750h/RTX2060/16GB/512GB NVMe for 1100€/1350$ one year ago.