General question about Latitudes

The Dell E6540 has a decent keyboard (I've used the E6530 and found it to be good) and has a traditional pointing stick with dedicated buttons. The same goes for HP Elitebook 850 and the ZBook 15. The ZBook 15 is the most expensive of these 15" laptops but has the best specs and maybe even the best screen. The Dell E5540 also has the pointing stick and can be found with a 15" FHD for around $700-$800 which is a good deal. But since you want to utilize some of them tax deductions , you may prefer a bit of a higher price, your call.

As alexhawker mentioned above, the Dell trackpoint is not very similar to the traditional Thinkpad trackpoints, at least not on the E6530 that I used. It's a bit more flatter and wider and doesn't function as well. I have heard that one can replace the trackpoint cap with a different one, such as a Thinkpad trackpoint cap. I cannot confirm if this will work or not. Also, the trackpoint buttons aren't as raised as the traditional Thinkpad buttons so that part isn't as good either (of course on the newer Thinkpads there are no dedicated trackpoint buttons).

Any of these laptops will be good if you can live with the trackpoints/keyboards. There is also the Thinkpad T540P but as you are aware, it has the newly designed trackpad which may or may not work well with the trackpoint.