2012 Retina model had all the relevant ports, a great keyboard & screen, an Intel CPU and Nvidia GPU - the go-to choices for professional software development to date, making it much easier to design locally & deploy remotely.

Build quality was also stunning. It’s still good, but the gap between brands is shrinking.

Arguably the worst part about modern MacBooks is software. I don’t know anyone who finds it more stable/convenient to use or pleasant to develop for :(