So, if I understood correctly, building the kernel with these patches isn't enough: I still need to reconfigure something before building, right?

> The first simply inherits whichever configuration the firmware has provided, on the assumption that the system vendor probably didn't configure their system to corrupt data out of the box.

This may fail with odd combinations (common on desktops, since it's not a single vendor that put things together), but will probably stand true for laptop. I assume this is quite true for macbooks: given the small variety of hardware they use, they're probably quite finely tested.