"I only called it "the one with a single port" so you'd know which one I'm talking about... Obviously it worked. I couldn't say "the one with the bad processor" because that's been the case for years now."
First of all, no, the reason it worked is because they only have one computer called just 'The MacBook'. There is the MacBook Pro line, the MacBook Air line, and the MacBook line.
Second of all, find a laptop that is the same price or less than the 15" Retina MacBook Pro that has a better processor AND all of the other specs the same. Has to have a display with the same or higher resolution, all-metal chassis, same or better graphics card (not that difficult, admittedly), same or higher amount of RAM, same capacity and speed for the SSD, service centers located in most major cities that don't require mailing out your computer, and a release date within 4 months of when the MacBook Pro came out.
Spoiler alert: you aren't going to find one. You can barely even find another laptop that has an all-metal chassis, and the few you can find are generally dual-core (like the Chromebook Pixel). If you throw out the chassis, you can either spend more for something like a ZBook or Clevo (but in fairness, get a MUCH better graphics card with it, among other things) or you can spend less and get a vastly shittier chassis, SSD, and screen. I have shopped around EXTREMELY thoroughly and I always go back to the MBP for a 15" laptop. The compromises you have to make with anything else are just not appealing to me - I don't need a better graphics card (but I will concede that Apple's GPUs are almost always abysmal by comparison to other laptops at the time) and unless I want an Extreme Edition CPU (which I don't), the MBP consistently has either the best or the second-best mobile chip Intel makes next to the EE. The screen and trackpad are absolutely glorious. You can try to convince me that the MBP is somehow not the best fit for my needs, but as I am someone who honestly is pretty bored with Apple and has tried multiple times to find a competitive laptop, you are going to need to actually show me a laptop that meets or exceeds the MBP in every way for +- $500 or you aren't going to sway me. (But hey, if you do find one, I seriously will probably buy it the next time I feel like an upgrade!)
As to your second point, why is sacrificing unneeded functionality in exchange for some aesthetics a bad mindset? Computing is the only area where I regularly see people criticized for doing this. People aren't driving around in un-painted, identical-looking cars and living in gray, spartan boxes on the side of the road. People aren't eating military rations that are exactly the number of calories and nutrients they need to survive. People aren't wearing un-dyed wool slabs for clothing. People don't watch the same movie over and over again for entertainment. So why is it SO weird or 'not great' that people might use a computer that is a little nicer than it absolutely has to be?