I think you nailed it at least partially. There are millions of GNU/Linux users so why isn't there enough demand?
If people were purchasing millions of GNU/Linux laptops rather than purchasing millions of Microsoft Windows and Apple laptops to run GNU/Linux then you'd not have a problem getting a completely free system- that actually ran half-decently.
The way it is the options are severely limited and there isn't a whole lot we can do. Besides making it easier to get laptops with fewer restrictions and not dependant on any non-free drivers for the major chipsets... not much.
Porting a free BIOS from one laptop to another is a non-trivial task that is probably going to take at least 20,000 laptops of a particular model being sold to happen. And even then you won't have a completely free laptop. For that we would need to go to a non-x86 architecture, a considerably slower CPU, and possibly use a graphics chipset without 3d acceleration. I'm not even sure if you can put out such a system as a 1366x768 screen may not be possible using this combination of chipsets/specifications.
I think our current selection of laptops is decent considering all the limitations. And we are still working on getting some additional models with additional configuration options (higher resolution screens for instance, more ram, etc).
