I think my one quibble would be with your advice to stay away from the 3rd-generation processors - I suspect that the HD4000 graphics in most of them will be significantly better over time, and any kernel issues are likely to be ironed out in fairly short order.

The discussion I've seen on the keyboard difference seemed to be along the lines of the new keyboards still being best-in-class, but they are different so if you're shifting from one of the older ThinkPad keyboards you might object but nobody else should have problems.

Also of note is that the X230 (and all of the xx30 models, I believe) have mini-DisplayPort rather than whichever HDMI connection. I know the T430 also has a standard VGA adapter so it should be possible to drive at least 2 external displays; it's not clear whether the mini DisplayPort on them is DisplayPort++ which would in theory allow you to drive dual monitors fairly easily if they supported DisplayPort as well as HDMI.

UPDATE: For running multiple external monitors it's probably going to be at a fixed location where a dock is a possibility. In that case, Lenovo's Series 3 docking stations are worth looking at (http://support.lenovo.com/en_US/product-and-parts/detail.pag...). The smallest has VGA only, the Mini Dock has VGA+DVI+DisplayPort but only runs 2 at a time, the Mini Dock Plus has VGA+2xDVI+2xDisplayPort and "many systems, including those with NVIDIA Optimus, allow for up to three ports on the dock to be used simultaneously."