If you want truly awful bang-for-buck, try the Mac Pro, it's hilariously overpriced for such an old machine. The CPU had to be swapped out because Intel stopped making the original ones.
Apple has been making moves that look like abandoning the Mac Pro for a while now. It's been three years where the only upgrade has been a chip update forced on them because Intel stopped making the old ones.
If you're thinking of making a video processing app or scientific computing app or any other app that really likes a lot of CPU you should plan your Mac version with a generic unix back end and communicate over the network. Apple is not supporting the market, anymore.
I guess that applies to anyone who wants something other than a phone or tablet. Unfortunately all the other manufacturers have abandoned the mid-range desktop and laptop PC markets even more thoroughly than Apple. I'm still amazed no one else but Apple sold a laptop with an acceptable screen at all for four straight years until 2012.
They got rid of Xserve and they'll likely get rid of the Mac Pro if demand falls significantly.
The line I hear is "I'd rather be using a Mac, but...."
It's true that Apple tends to fit high-end Core chips in notebooks, but last year's Core i7-3770K still gives you step up in performance over this year's Retina MBP. And for pro users, time is money.
It's difficult to explain the continued use of outdated chips over the past few years, especially after they discontinued the XServe and told everyone to use the Mac Pro instead.
I suppose the Gruber-esque answer is that Apple (especially under Steve Jobs) wants to present an elegant vision of what computing should be, every product a work of art with considerable mass market appeal. The Mac Pro is basically indistinguishable from a bulky 90s tower PC, and very few people actually need it.
It's a decidedly unsexy product. Apple is not Dell or Lenovo, they make very few products and they make a very big deal out of each one of them. The Mac Pro is an unfortunate necessity that they cannot reasonably discontinue. But it's not a product that Apple really wants to make.