Anyone here use Thinkpads?

  I do. I prefer Thinkpads to any mac. I still see very technical engineers using Thinkpads (but definitely more in the "systems" guys than developers). The reliability is rock solid, you can get similar performance as a mbp at half the cost. A note: If you run linux as your main system - it can be slightly more difficult to get everything running the first boot, but that's it.