The one thing keeping me from buying a 17in. notebook is the lack of a full keyboard with numeric keypad. I really don't want to lug around an external keypad. I already lug around a trackball with our PC notebooks and would do the same with a Mac. Every single one of our desktop Macs has a full keyboard in place of the stock shorty. It's a shame, really.
I have been programming for 10+ years, I have a full keyboard on the desk, and I can honestly say that I have used the numeric keypad maybe a dozen times in that whole time. If you're an accountant, it may be a different story, but for programming... it might as well not exist as far as I'm concerned.
I agree with the above comments saying that a minority would want it, but I seem to use the numeric keypad all the time as a programmer or calculating pixels when I'm doing layout work. I really disliked the minimal keyboard that came with my 27" quad core iMac, so I took the free upgrade. Its unfortunate you can't do that with a notebook.
Apple's Notebooks have full keyboards, what buttons are missing besides the Windows symbol?<p>If you'd like a numeric pad then you can actually buy a USB Num Pad from Best Buy.