Something doesn't add up in your story. You ended buying a machine that was 350$ over your stated max budget. I am also not sure what you include in "user replaceable components" but Macbooks are, from experience, generally harder to service than PCs. Maybe you just wanted a Mac and were looking for reasons to indulge yourself?
I decided that if I was stuck with a machine that wasn't going to have user replaceable components, I'd rather have a Macbook that I know will last longer than most PC based laptops. Pretty simple logic.
