I have always been dismayed with us techies and our toys. Like women and their purses. Not that there is anything wrong with that. But its nice to know there are great programmers out there who don't care about that stuff.
But geesh, even I would upgrade from a white Macbook, and I am using a 2006 MBP.
While some toys can definitely be attributed as luxury (you don't really need that iPad), I can say that my i7 Macbook Air made me a significantly happier developer. Incredibly fast for everything I do, be it Xcode or Photoshop. Check. Long battery life and lightweight - great for coffee shops. Check. This is one "toy" that actually improved my productivity.
Also, something should be said about efficiency. If you're primarily coding on a slow/old computer where compiles, etc. take longer, you may be wasting precious time. It's worth having the best tools for the job.
I definitely agree, if I wasn't doing Windows development, I'd be perfectly happy with a machine that was that level spec, Vim and screen don't take up many resources at all. Lousy battery life would be a dealbreaker though.
But geesh, even I would upgrade from a white Macbook, and I am using a 2006 MBP.