Macbooks are great in their own right but they don't (in my opinion) fill the gap left by earlier Thinkpad laptops, for several reasons: Lack of removable battery, fewer options (msata, main sata, secondary sata, 3g etc), VGA for presentations, trackpoint, ease of access to internals, value for money, etc.
I have looked into HP Elitebooks but I have been burned by HP and seen so many others burned by HP that I hesitate to invest in them.