The processor speed is less important to me. But the lack of more than 16 GB of RAM is a serious problem. As a developer, I frequently run a large number of VMs at once. My current laptop has 16 GB of RAM, and I frequently need more to run all of the VMs that I need, so I wind up having to use my workstation with has 32 GB of RAM, and just connect to that remotely when I'm on my laptop. That's cumbersome and doesn't work well when I'm on the road in places with flaky connectivity (I travel a lot, as I work remotely and come into the office, so being able to do all of my work on my laptop would be a big win).

The escape key issue doesn't bother me as much, but I'm not a Vim user and I already have Caps Lock mapped to escape or control depending on whether it's a modifier or not. I do use the function keys occasionally in cross-platform development tools like gitk, but I'm sure that other keybindings can be substituted and I'd be able to deal with that.

But the lack of RAM beyond 16 GB pretty much means there's no reason for me to upgrade from my 3 year old laptop. I would have considered upgrading this cycle if they offered more RAM, but as it is I'll probably hold off. Maybe if they release another in a year or so with more RAM I'll upgrade; if not, I may just switch to a Lenovo or other laptop that has more expansion room.

3 years without a bump in RAM capacity seems like an awful lot. I realize that Moore's Law is flattening out, but stagnating for 3 years like this seems like a long time.