IPhone – Stolen mac locked automatically or by thief

Before iOS 7 this was not possible or feasible since iTunes would restore an image of the OS that would be free from any locking. Now there is Activation Lock which neatly pre-empts any attempt to remove the Find My iPhone feature of iCloud. Effectively, with Find my iPhone, your device is effectively locked to your Apple ID.

For iOS 7 and later - enable Find My iPhone to prevent anyone else from erasing or using the device.

If my iOS 6 or less iPhone is stolen, can I remotely brick the thing, so resale value drops to zero?

No.

The best you can do is to wipe the data from the device with an app like Find My iPhone from Apple or the open source Prey application. The device will no longer contain your applications or personal data, but it will still function normally and the thief could then initialize it for their own use.

For apps like Apple's Find My Phone, how feasible is it for a thief to remove the apps?

Without wiping the device? Hard to impossible. And that's the whole point of these applications: to keep your data safe and the cost of losing the hardware. You're essentially cleaning it for them and getting it ready for their use or resale. But you're ensuring that they can't gain access to your personal data, your PayPal account, your bank accounts and anything else you might have your phone connected to.

In the UK, cell phone carriers will blacklist phones that are reported stolen so they can't be used on the network again. The bigger UK carriers do it. Not sure how common a practice it is in North America, or if carriers here are willing to do it all.

I'm sorry your MacBook was stolen. That really sucks.

Sadly, there are numerous ways to read the data ranging from removing the drive or placing the Mac in target mode. Your password only protects things when the mac is booted into your unmodified OS.

To answer your question, Physical access is total access.

It would be trivial for someone to boot using a Linux LiveCD and mount your drive, thus accessing your files. All they'd have to do to get past your sleep/password would be to hard power down the system.

Additionally, from the link above:

Mac OS X: Single User Mode

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To boot a Mac into “Single User mode”, simply boot the computer and press Apple + S when blue first shows up on the screen. Next, mount the harddrive, and either dump the password and crack it with a tool like John the Ripper, or simply overwrite the root password:

# /sbin/mount -wu /
# /sbin/SystemStarter
To dump the existing root password:
# nidump passwd
To create a new root password:
# passwd root