I think you're straw-manning the premise. He's not talking about the difference between a '10 MBP and an '11 MBP, more like the difference between a mid-to-high-end '08 MBP running Leopard and a mid-to-high-end '11 workstation running Lion. Try going back to 3-year-old machine for a week, and I think you'll find it's kind of annoying, and your morale will die the death of a thousand papercuts.