It would have been great if apple introduced a regular macbook pro with an IPS screen. I have a hi-res 15.4" macbook pro and a 1080p Dell XPS 16. Both are non-IPS. I recently picked up a Lenovo 12.5 HD IPS screen which is lower DPI than either the mac or the dell. However after using the lenovo for a couple of days I'm blown away how shitty both the mac and the dell screens looked (dull, like someone had put a film on top). Given many applications are not ready for retina display, apple could have used their supply chain prowess to get an IPS display on their regular macbook pro line.
I agree that it would have been awesome to upgrade the non-retina MacBooks to IPS. But go try the 14" Thinkpad. It uses the shittiest LCD panel in the industry, way worse than any MacBook and worse or on par with the worst Dell laptops.
