I will admit I didn't read all the thread, but I thought I would mention - have you looked into education discounts? Apple offers one and I believe it's somewhere between 10-15%. It's how I got my new macbook. As long as you attend a university you can use it and they don't require verification (at least, they didn't for me, but I used mine to buy three computers during my 7 years of post highschool study).

Edit: Ah, I see Miurenn is on top of things already as usual!