When I moved straight from a titanium PowerBook to one of the new MacBook Pros, one of the biggest design changes was that the ports were now on the side rather than on the back of the ‘book.
As far as I can tell, the main reason for this is that the current hinge design uses the entire back panel of the unit, thus precluding having any ports there. This is certainly an improvement over the TiBook’s hinges (which had an unfortunate tendency to unravel after a while (mine haven’t yet, touch wood titanium)), and some people have even praised the side-ports in their own right, since they are arguably easier to access.
However, in my opinion, the machine looks downright ugly with all these cables snaking out the side of it. My PowerBook could be hooked up to the nines, but all the cables would be coming out of the back, out of sight, and it would still look sleek and elegant. And then there’s this:
The MacBook Pro is a fantastic machine technically, but I still pine for the design of the titanium PowerBooks.
(Yes, I realise this is a rather late complaint, since every new PowerBook since 2003 has had this ports-on-the-side design. But I bitch about things as I find them.)