I'm desperately hanging on to my T500 daily work machine. It was the last generation with 16:10 screens and the second-to-last with the good keyboard layout.
With an SSD and maxed RAM it's still viable, but the C2D processor is a real bottleneck. Trouble is, any machine I could replace it with would be a processor upgrade and an everything else downgrade.
Edit: actually the Macbooks have great 16:10 screens, so there's at least that option. Unfortunately they come with a long list of downsides of their own.
I don't want to get your hopes up too high, but there are positive signs that Lenovo is listening to what ThinkPad users want. There were a number of surveys started last year (and that may still be open) for feedback on a retro ThinkPad.
With an SSD and maxed RAM it's still viable, but the C2D processor is a real bottleneck. Trouble is, any machine I could replace it with would be a processor upgrade and an everything else downgrade.
Edit: actually the Macbooks have great 16:10 screens, so there's at least that option. Unfortunately they come with a long list of downsides of their own.