Good point, Kris. Hadn't thought about that. Of course, OTHER things may be more sensitive - like documents with personal info that identity thieves could use (like tax forms). I suspect that the attraction was the MBP itself, not its data, and if Bruce is lucky, the thief will simply wipe the drive - either so he can use it himself or much more likely, sell it. Of course, that again demands a certain knowledge of Macs and access to a startup disk, and if he has that, then who knows. One thing is for certain - anyone trying to sell a Macbook Pro to an innocent buyer is going to have a hard time explaining why he can't start it up and get past the password protection, so something will have to be done. My guess is that unless this is some rank amateur thief, he'll have fenced it to someone else who will then deal with it. But these are all guesses. What have the police said about it? (who they suspect etc. - ie: was it a "professional" job or a teenage smash and grab sort of job?)
Bruce, start keeping an eye on Craigslist and Kijiji in the Portland/Vancouver area. You never know....I've heard of people finding their own laptops that way. The police certainly don't go out of their way to find 'em. In Toronto, there was a recent case where a couple had an expensive jogging stroller stolen off their front porch and within 36 hours saw it listed on Craigslist. The man took another (male) friend and arranged to meet the seller, confirmed that the stroller was indeed his (his son had made chalk marks on it - it was easy to identify), confronted the seller and took it back. The seller was then tracked down by the police and arrested - and had been doing this for some time, apparently. I'm assuming that you have the serial number and so on?
BTW - did they get the whole thing - power supply etc., laptop bag, any disks (OS disks?) or just the laptop itself? This might help identify it if the thief does happen to list it on Craigslist - especially if the listing says anything like "no power supply" etc., or seems to be going for a too-good-to-be-true price. If you do think you find it, take someone else with you to help recover it and be really careful...(all the usual precautions - meet in a public place like a bank or well-populated coffee shop, ask to start up the Mac, and for sure check the serial number in system profiler!!)
