Truth be told, I'm feeling the same urges. The golden age of my Mac was years ago. I switched to Macs in 2002, and had the most amazing computing period of my life between then and approximately 2011. Since then the random reboots of both the uncontrolled variety and controlled (though forced through needing to kick a random weird glitch) variety have increased to the point that I no longer consider my computer to be stable.

Frankly, it feels like Windows in the 1990s. No, I don't have rose tinted spectacles of nostalgia on, something is broken in the way Apple produce OS X now, and I just can't with good conscience recommend a Mac anymore. At least weekly I experience random lockups, reboots, temporary freezes, full freezes that require cold cycle, etc.

Yes, my computer passes all diagnostics. No, Apple haven't found anything wrong. Yes, I'm incredibly technical and have decades of experience. Yes, I have fully re-installed and re-formatted and been through no end of measures to correct a phantom problem. No I'm not imagining things.

OS X just sucks compared to what it was a few years ago.

I'm not quite ready to abandon the platform, simply because I haven't done the home work to find another hardware supplier to run some other OS on.

Does anyone have any pointers or suggestions regarding laptops of comparable build quality and design as a MacBook Pro? This physical device and form factor is the thing keeping me in the Apple world. Otherwise, I'm ready to jump ship.

To those on here with plenty of access to people who could shake things up, perhaps with a league of hardware engineers and industrial designers, and a healthy dose of funding, mark my words, there is room in this industry for a shakeup right now. I'll bet dollars to donuts I'm not the only one awaiting a viable alternative.