I have the 15" i7 with 8GB RAM, nVidia 330M graphics and 128GB solid state HDD, plus the high res glossy screen. The anti glare option is kinda pants and makes the screen look rubbish, plus the only time it'll actually matter is if you're outside on a sunny day.
I would have bought the 17" version except it was slightly too big to fit into my backpack and I thought it was just a bit too heavy to carry round regularly. The 15" i7 is IMO the best compromise between outright performance and portability.
However, in response to the OP they're definitely worth the money. You can buy better spec laptops for less but even then you'll probably end up using Windows on them, which is just bloatware compared to Mac OS. I've had mine since April and use it very regularly. It's still as quick as they day I got it (and still looks as good). Battery life is epic (you won't find many other laptops with battery life like these have, largely thanks to how good OS X is at getting the balance between performance and battery life right), plus if you really want you can use Boot Camp to run Windows on it anyway (very easy to do even for a novice).
The other good thing about them is that they retain their value. 3 year old top spec (at the time) MBP's are still selling for around £800+, largely because of the build quality, reliability and how awesome the spec was at the time - meaning they still cut the mustard even now. So, if you come to sell it in a few years time when you fancy an upgrade, you'll still get a fair wedge for it.
