Full screen apps with the magic pad swipe between them mitigates this somewhat for apps like Mail, Sublime Text, or Terminal, but 1440 x 900 is a poor choice for dual page word processing.
That said, after development, my second most common activity is photo triage and editing. For this, the 15" retina display could present a far truer representation of what can be expected in the final print.
But I'm concerned about the "less glare" feature. I've also always and only purchased the matte screens. They have no glare, and no false brilliance from the glossy screen. For photo editing for print work, the matte screens have always felt more accurate. I'm curious if they've gone to a single screen surface, based on glossy, but with somewhat less glare. I'm not sure I'd be interested in that.
On the plus side, a MBP 17" only fits in carry on bags that can't quite go in a commuter jet's overhead bin, while the 15" will fit easily in most any commuter jet compatible bag.
That said, the iPad 3 64GB with iPhoto and SnapSeed can ingest and edit a great deal of photos even at today's DSLR resolutions. On recent trips, I carry an iPad 3 plus a Nextodi external portable photo HDD with integrated card reader. I edit one day's worth of photos on the iPad, while archiving the full memory cards on the Nextodi.
(Example: http://www.phillips-safety.com/store/product_info.php?cPath=...)
"Supported resolutions: 2880 by 1800 pixels (Retina); scaled resolutions: 1920 by 1200, 1680 by 1050, 1280 by 800, and 1024 by 640 pixels"
I think you've confused "resolution" with "my preferred resolution". The new MBP has both a higher density and a better resolution then what you're looking for. You may be disappointed but I bet Apple thinks it can make more money by selling 2880x1800 MBPs.
You can imagine an alternative scenario to this in which everything on the screen is half as big as it used to be yet equally detailed, with four times as many icons fitting on the home screen as before. This is what it would be like if the full resolution of the retina display were utilized just to provide more real estate instead of more detail.
I'm guessing a reason we haven't seen high DPI screens from Dell/HP/Sony/etc is partially because the Windows OS doesn't really support it that well just yet. Hopefully things have changed in Windows 8.
Hopefully the Linux devs will start taking this into consideration.
Supported resolutions: 2880 by 1800 pixels (Retina); scaled resolutions: 1920 by 1200, 1680 by 1050, 1280 by 800, and 1024 by 640 pixels
This is odd.
I.e., the approach they've taken is fully scaleable from current resolutions to high resolutions, but it'll take some cooperation from third-party software.
In the end, you'll be better off.
I guess we'll have to see how that works out.