[willstrimling]

I'd say yes, I have the 15" you are thinking about. The SSD I have is drastically better than my former HDD, and I don't think I could ever go back. I have an 128gb limit on the SSD, with the addition of an external firwire harddrive. If you're not looking to spend $500, maybe get a smaller, 128gb ssd for applications and OS, and then when a thunderbolt external/portable HDD comes out, you can store files on that. Hope that helps. If anything, I believe you cannot go wrong with any size SSD.

[Shooter]

Have you experienced the "lock-up/freeze under load" issue that some have had with these models? I'm getting ready to buy a new MBP, but that scared me a bit. Some said the latest software update fixed it, but many others are still having problems.

I'm looking at the SSD kits from MacSales/OWC, but I don't want to give up the optical drive. And I know very little about SSDs...

[codenerdz]

You can get a chinese knockoff of MacSales Optibay kit for 1/5 the price on ebay (search for fenvi)

http://forums.macrumors.com/showthread.php?t=1102442