Yeah, the “soldered SSD” thing is extremely ridiculous. Like, they’re doing everything to make the laptops thinner, even the “Pro” line. Adding M.2 and SODIMM slots wouldn’t even add that much thickness! And M.2 allows the same performance (NVMe) as soldering the SSD.

By the way, Apple trackpads aren’t that special (until 3d touch, at least). They’re literally just Synaptics, same as in a lot of laptops.