I had (well, I still have it) a Mac Mini and used it between 2007 and 2009. I was pretty dissatisfied with its performance (then again, that was around the time when Tiger got obsolete and the Leopard moved in, and the Mini was already slow and old by that time) but, overall, I think it's the most productive platform I used, short of my old WindowMaker setup which has aged too much to be useful by now.
So I know what to expect right now. Frankly, what I'm afraid of is that I don't know what to expect next year. 2K for an experiment is ok if I could run it for three or four years. Right now, it looks like if Apple has a document called "Roadmap for Mac Computers, 2016-2020", there's a good chance that it's a four-page summary of another document called "How to convince all our customers to just get an iPad already for fun and profit".
The hardware is solid. I have zero complaints about build quality. You are not obligated to upgrade to the latest OS (but you probably should...). I feel really comfortable saying you can get 4 years out of a mbp. If you really need the out, just in case you need to install windows or linux, wait 2-3 months, just to make sure other people have done it reliably.
There is always risk it's not the "optimal" choice, but it's certainly not the "wrong" choice. MacOS is fine. If you hate it just install something else. (but the brand new stuff might be flakey under windows/linux for a while)
Just read this thread and I'm also comfortable recommending the hardware for three or four years easily. Also, the top level comment describes a small amount of what I went through about 10 years ago that made me switch back to Apple, though I built a hackintosh instead of a laptop.
So I know what to expect right now. Frankly, what I'm afraid of is that I don't know what to expect next year. 2K for an experiment is ok if I could run it for three or four years. Right now, it looks like if Apple has a document called "Roadmap for Mac Computers, 2016-2020", there's a good chance that it's a four-page summary of another document called "How to convince all our customers to just get an iPad already for fun and profit".