> They can barely run Safari, iPhoto, Mail.app, and Skype at the same time without constant beachballing
I am skeptical of your anecdote. My 2010 MBP was perfectly happy running Xcode, IntelliJ, and pretty much any other applications I'd care to run, and that was before I put a SSD in it (which, naturally, helped a lot).
I think you're stretching the truth by a great deal.