> Anyone who cares about value isn’t getting a non-base model Mac. They are buying the silver shiny thing or their company is paying.

Or they value things differently than you do.

Like screen brightness. Or external IO. Or more than 64GB of memory. Or not being stuck with Windows. Or an SSD larger than 2TB.

> removable WiFi card

I could stick my hand into a wood chipper and still use the stump to count the number of people I've ever seen mention much less desire a removable wifi card in the decision making process about a laptop.