>>There's a good reason nobody makes them anymore.

But they do. Last I checked HP, Dell and Lenovo all had options for power users (not in their consumer / mid-range laptops though). Or at the very least, my last several and current clients have all sent me laptops with a Trackpoint from those three brands (and not to my asking; it's just fairly standard for mobile employees or enterprise customers to have Trackpoint included)

>>What learning curve? Isn't it just a joystick mouse?

well, no - to me, that's an inherent contradiction: Mouse and trackpad are both positional (as largely is trackball). Joystick, trackpoint are directional. They are fundamentally different paradigms.

In terms of learning curve, I do believe Trackpoint is less intuitive for most users, as it does have that different paradigm. I think it takes a bit of time to get really good at it - most people who use it for a few minutes feel it's inferior and clumsy. But I've had "races" with my colleagues with Macbooks, and spoiler - I'll agree it's not even close, but not necessarily in the direction you might expect 0:-)

(on aside, I do have a Macbook, it's about 4 years old. How new does a modern it need to be to fit your definition of a modern Apple Trackpad?

> What learning curve? Isn't it just a joystick mouse?

They don't have a learning curve in the sense that it's difficult to make one functional, but when I did try a trackpoint I felt it terribly awkward and imprecise. I'm not at all surprised that there would be a transition period after which trackpoints at least felt better to use.