not_sure_if_serious.jpg....

In some states you can be ticketed for going too slow in the left lane (this started being enforced due to issues with emergency workers and roadside assitance workers not being able to respond in a timely fashion)

Yes, we know what a limit it. Most of us studied Calculus.

lim f($speedOfCar).
x-> $speedLimit

is just a point on the graph

And how would you know what reason someone has for what they are doing? There are legitimate reasons to exceed posted speed limits you know. Not that most people are doing it for those reasons, but they do exist.

I consider a 13" laptop to be small form factor....I wouldn't be able to use an 11" laptop.

Well, that would require them to try. There was a time that AMD did (Athlon vs Pentium 4, and then the Athlon 64 vs Pentium D). The AMD FX failed to deliver, and AMD is way overdue on releasing a new chip (Piledriver came out how long ago? 2012? Intel has released Ivy Bridge, Haswell, and Broadwell since then).

Except this "fringe" software is one of the widest used pieces of software out there.

If you're buying a laptop that ships with Linux (I'm looking at the Dell Precision line) they ship with the proprietary drivers installed. The OOBE experience from the manufacturer isn't the same as a vanilla install. I can't speak for the XPS 13, but I can say that my Precision M4500 runs flawless with the Quadro GPU.

Can't change the RAM - since moving to the Retina displays RAM is soldered to the board.

Not trolling - you can't upgrade the RAM (soldered, and the top option is 16GB anyway) and you're limited in SSD choices.

Last MBP I saw the insides of (a Retina-screen one, mind you) the SSD was the only upgradable part.

The other big thing the Precision line has over the MBP line (and for that matter, over just about any laptop on the market right now) is NOT having that damned chicklet keyboard.

Replaceable parts, and better GPUs. Next.

I can give a couple of reasons:
Better hardware options (Quadro vs Geforce)
Upgradable hardware - decide you need a bigger SSD or more RAM later? No can do on a MBP.

Most people that work on Laptops spend a lot more then 1K on a system. For a work laptop 1.8-2.5K isn't unreasonable. And they usually last a long time ( >5years ) before they quit working.