While Apple has been in the business of simplifying ports there is a difference at least in previous cases we were ready to move on I'd argue. Back in 1999 I don't think I had used a floppy for a few years, zip drives? Sure, but not a floppy. Dropping the optical drive was bound to happen, I don't think I've really used a optical media bay outside of a game console for years.

However, every day at work, I plug my MacBook Retina into two monitors, plug in my USB 3.0 drive, sometimes my iPhone to charge or do dev stuffs, and charger, and frequently use my SD card slot as a 3rd HDD. Apple now is in the business of offloading the problem of I/O to the user, they haven't fixed it. It wouldn't have hurt the MacBook to include 2-4 ports, all USB3c