I just thought about it today, and realized I haven't actually shutdown my laptop for a very long time. I have a MacBook Pro and just close the screen; it's quicker, and I can get back to work in less time. I just wanted to see if I was the only one or if some of you do the same.
Last night.<p>The boot time is usually 12 seconds maximum, and it doesn't take any longer than ~20 seconds for my work to load up (depending on what I'm doing, most of my work loads up pretty much instantly). I don't really miss the few extra seconds it takes.
At night I suspend by closing the screen.<p>In the morning when I leave (the laptop stays home) I hibernate, which copies memory to disk, encrypts the whole disk and then shuts the power down. When I come home I power up, entering my long-ass encryption password, then wait half a minute and enter my shorter login password.<p>I hibernate so that if someone breaks in, all they get is the laptop, not the data. I don't worry about the NSA [hi guys], they already have the data, or they can beat it out of me if they care.<p>I think if I regularly carried my laptop during the day I'd hibernate rather than just suspend, because some day the laptop will walk away.
Every time I'm about to go through custom's X-ray machines.
I'm not sure why, maybe just coincidence, twice my previous Dell XPS stopped working after going through airport xray while in sleep mode.
I never shut it down. Sometimes it crashes, or it may happen the battery goes flat, and it has to reboot, but otherwise, it's always on or sleeping.
In the several months I've owned my MBA, barring battery death and update-related reboots, never. Not once have I willingly shut my computer down without intent to immediately fire it back up. I just close it, for the same reasons as OP.
My Dell Windows 7 laptop, every 2 - 3 days, grimacing as I do. I don't reboot my Macbook until I get nagged enough that an update requires a reboot, which seems to happen a lot more often on Mountain Lion than it did on Snow Leopard.