[astrocat]

Actually no. Or maybe: yes, but...

My first MPB was one of the "high resolution" ones that ran at 1680x1050 and I loved it. So when I first got my 15" retina MBP was miffed that now it felt like I was running a 1440x900, just with double (well, quadruple) pixel density. So I opened scaling preferences and set it so the retina screen would "emulate" a 1680x1050 display. It was terrible. Blurry and SLOW. Good lord it was slow. And impossible to do any design work on. I went back to normal 2x scale.

So sure, this kind of scaling has been available for a long time but the reality is most people don't scale their MPB retina displays to anything other than 2x.

[parasubvert]

Eh? I've run my rMBP at 1680x1050 for over two years. It's not blurry or (appreciably) slow, though I'll admit I'm using it more for development work more than heavy design work.

[astrocat]

I guess YMMV... I also had to get my screen replaced because it was one of the small number of screens that had severe burn-in issues.