I haven't tried rootless mode, though.
I'll agree with you about Chromebooks for developers, though (well, if you like doing everything from text mode, which I do). My ARM-based Flip is a lovely machine. Cheap, ultraportable, completely silent, ludicrous battery life and the quad-core ARM flies.
I just wish they'd get X running in a VC working. (The Flip uses a special graphics stack which apparently makes this hard.)