Issue we have these days is that the RAM's glued/soldered on, so you HAVE to buy Apple RAM. Spendy. And yeah, there's not nearly so many ports any more. You'll almost certainly need a dock of some sort - there's no firewire any more, for example, and only 2 USB holes.
That's good to know, I'm not so worried about graphics as I want it for a music production/recording thing but the more cores/ram/ports the better.