I own the current MacBook Air and I don't care about retina. Yes, it would be nice, but I prefer the extra battery life. It's the best computer I've ever used.
I own a retina and the battery life is simply horrendous.
5-7 hours is horrendous nowadays?
I spent 4 hours on a plane on Friday using my 15" MBPr the entire allowable time (4 ticks of screen brightness)and still had 50% of my battery left. Hardly what I'd call horrendous.