I found that I used the removable drive so little that its not a dealbreaker. I bought my last laptop in 2003, 12" display, 1" thin, external cd drive. plugged it in 6 months later for the first windows install then again 6 months later to install linux, then maybe again a coupel years ago for the garmin gps software/maps. Since my wife has a laptop also I have an external dvd burner so we can use it with either so a couple months ago I replaced the laptop with a netbook and use the external dvd burner if I ever need a drive. If I want to watch a movie the 42" hdtv with surround sound is going to be better than any laptop, its just annoying that you can't find any laptop now that are not widescreen, its most annying on my work one where they just pushed out MSOffice 2007 with the toolbar now taking 1/3 of the height, I wish they would quite making laptops try to be dvd players, or at least make the wide screen a way differentiate between consumer and business machines.
I found that after a few years I quit trying to worry about having the latest and greatest system out there, would rather spend the money on other toys so spending a little more for a laptop up front was aceptable to me. I paid close to $1500 in 2003 for that nice light small one, replaced the 20G drive with a 60G, then a couple years later a 120G then later a 160G then bought the netbook for $300 and put a 500G in it for $100 so I haven't spent that much.