I just upgraded my 2015 Macbook Pro with a 2TB SSD and a new battery. I'm planning to keep using it for a few years.
The 2015 MBPs were the last ones that had replaceable drives (it's a proprietary slot, but adaptors to M2 are available).
I still think that the 2015 models are the last laptops Apple actually targeted at pro users. They even added support for PCI NVMe drives in a recent macOS version, so these MBPs got MORE EXPANDABLE after release. It's crazy! (It does have soldered-on RAM though)
The only comparable recent Mac was the 2018 Mac mini -- with user upgradable RAM! It does have soldered on flash, unfortunately. But it has so many ports, and with external thunderbolt enclosures you can add GPUs, SSD Raids, ... It's pretty amazing for a small desktop and surprisingly usable as a developer workstation.
(I'm not counting the current Mac Pro because it is so outrageously expensive that I can't imagine that it makes sense for anyone except the most highest paid professsionals)
My 2012 MacBook Pro is still going strong! Use it daily. Upgraded to a 1TB SSD, 16GB RAM and I sincerely hope it'll last a few more years - still on Mojave though. I boot into Crapolina to do App Store work from a USB SSD, but will probably upgrade to Big Sour at some point with the horrendous menubar spacing.
I type this on my work MacBook where I've had to press backspace so many times due to the shift key not working and the i key repeating itself, with the touchbar flashing constantly next to the power button.... the battery has a worse rating too even though it's a 2016 versus my 2012. I hate this keyboard.
The 2015 MBPs were the last ones that had replaceable drives (it's a proprietary slot, but adaptors to M2 are available).
I still think that the 2015 models are the last laptops Apple actually targeted at pro users. They even added support for PCI NVMe drives in a recent macOS version, so these MBPs got MORE EXPANDABLE after release. It's crazy! (It does have soldered-on RAM though)
The only comparable recent Mac was the 2018 Mac mini -- with user upgradable RAM! It does have soldered on flash, unfortunately. But it has so many ports, and with external thunderbolt enclosures you can add GPUs, SSD Raids, ... It's pretty amazing for a small desktop and surprisingly usable as a developer workstation.
(I'm not counting the current Mac Pro because it is so outrageously expensive that I can't imagine that it makes sense for anyone except the most highest paid professsionals)