New MacBook Pro 2011 Redesign Coming Thursday Feb. 24?

The Apple site is stating an lead time of 3-5 days for shipment of the MB Pro. It used to be 24 hours, which is the lead time on both the plastic MacBook and the MacBook Air. The Rumor Mills say announcement, and maybe availability on Thursday 2/24! 

RUMORS: 

• Amazon and Best buy are out of stock!
• European retailers have been told to expect sealed shipments. They are not to open them until they are told to do so. ALso they are reminded that they could lose their reseller status if they open the shipments! (Very cool Apple espionage!)
• New machines will be completely new design, skinny and light like MB Air. 
• OS will be on a 8-16GB SSD drive for faster startups and performance. A standard SATA drive will handle file storage. Large SSD drives will be available. (New updated info) 
• No Optical drive
• New Sandy Bridge Intel Chip up to 20 hours of battery life and better graphics
• New LightPeak technology port with transfer speeds of 10 GB per second vs. Firewire 800 at 800 Mb per sec. (I have no idea what this new Apple and Intel invention would connect to, but I like the concept). 

Personal Wish list: 

• I'm hoping for a combo hybrid storage solution, like 128 or 256GB SSD for the OS AND a SATA HD, possibly removable up to 500 GB @7200 RPM for file storage.  Currently the upgrade for a 512GB SSD is $1300. Maybe Apple will bring that down in the new model. (See update above)
• Back lit keyboard!! (The biggest negative of the MB Air!)

Well the MacBook Pro faithful will have a tough time sleeping until Thursday as visions of shiny new laptops dance in their heads! Stay tuned for breaking news .... and rumors.