MacBook Pro 3G (retina) questions

[Hans Olo]

Greetings Ableton Forum! (This is my first post)

I've got the opportunity to get one of the new MacBook Pros with retina displays relatively cheap through a special educational discount.
I got my hands on one of those and i have to say that I'm captivated by the idea of getting one.

My current setup is a MacBook (around 2007), 2.16 GHz, 2 GB RAM. Getting old, clogged, dusty and slow.

As you might have noticed, the new one I give consideration to comes with 2 thunderbolt and 2 USB 3.0 ports. Nothing else really connection-wise.

Now my problem is that thanks to these double-edged innovations my old hardware seems to become obsolete or at least rather circuitous in use.

I'd have to get a Thunderbolt-to-Firewire 800 adapter and a FW800-to-FW400 for my Motu Ultralite Mk3 hybrid alone I guess. Bus power no longer being an option in this setup as I've read.

I don't know if my MIDI equipment would still work fine using the USB 3.0 ports (M-Audio Axiom 2nd Gen and an Akai MPD-32).

For me, personally, chaining those devices with my synths via the interface would be a makeshift, nowhere near ideal.

To the core:

[1] Do you think all those drawbacks are worth the effort? Any experience on any of this?
(I did some research but I'm still as unsure as I was before, couldn't find anything useful in this forum so far as well)

[2] Could I just copy the Session Drums library (originally on DVD) from my old system to the new one?
(without transferring all of the remaining stuff)

[3] Would recording large projects with multiple tracks directly to an external drive be a solution to delay the infamous SSD-wearout?
(Also to keep the drive "slim")

Any thoughts on any of these issues are greatly appreciated. I know about the other pros and cons regarding display solution for Live (not ready for retina), integrated parts and other flaws of the product itself. Unfortunately I'm not willing to move away from Mac because i have to work with graphics a lot and am used to the OS. Not happy with the recent development when it comes to audio to put it mildly.

Thanks for taking your time for this long post. I would love to hear from you guys.

[434Live]

Mountain Lion is going to push it back anyway until they update it.