still not sure why we have both a "macbook" and "macbook air". they seem to occupy the same market segment. i thought apple was all about minimizing choices.
At this point, Apple is nearly back to the mid-90's state of having an assortment of overlapping products that compete against each other due to overlapping pricing.
Will the MacBook stay around? I suspect Apple is quite disillusioned with the performance that Intel offers in this TDP range, and the MacBook will either get dropped or go ARM.
If you need to decide between MB and MB Air, performance should't enter into it, it's almost the same.
I could see Apple just dropping it again and focusing on the Air/Pro lineup.