"The 16GB RAM limit is unfortunate."

This is a charitable characterization.

More correct would be to term this limit "absurd" or "clownish".

Even if Apple views the use-cases of these machines as primarily consumption devices and the users of these machines not as creators but as consumers, the bloat of the modern web is expensive and getting more expensive every day.

The end user needs this memory even if they really are just using these as facebook machines.

EDIT: That's not just the notebooks - the mini appears to have this limitation as well (down from 64GB previously).