How would you improve this pc?

Hello SF,
I'm looking to buy a laptop, this is what I have in mind.
I'm going to use it for gaming and work:
- ASUS N53SV-B1 Notebook, Intel® Core™ i5-2410M 2.3GHz, Intel® HM65, 15.6" Full - - HD Glossy, 6GB DDR3, 640GB, BD Combo, WiFi, NVIDIA® GeForce® GT 540M 1GB Graphics, Windows 7 Home Premium 64-bit
-INTEL Core™ i7-2720QM Quad-Core 2.2 - 3.3GHz TB, HD Graphics 3000, 6MB L3 -Cache, 32nm, 45W, EM64T EIST HT VT-d VT-x XD, Retail
-ANTEC Formula 7 Nano Diamond Thermal Compound
-CRUCIAL 16GB (2 x 8GB) PC3-10600 DDR3 1333MHz SDRAM SODIMM, CL9, Non-ECC
-INTEL 160GB 320 Series SSD, MLC, 270/165 MB/s, 2.5-Inch, SATA 3 Gb/s, Retail
-NOTEBOOK ACCESSORY Built-in 3-in-1 MMC/SD/MS Media Card Reader (Included)
-WESTERN DIGITAL 1TB My Passport Essential SE Black External Hard Drive, USB 3.0/USB 2.0, Retail

I can spend around 1700 USD / 10.000 DKK and this one is 1942 :/ so perhaps if some of this is just pure overkill, maybe some of it would be good to downgrade?

16 GB of RAM is overkill for most people. It might not be overkill for you depending on your intentions and how much you might save if you dropped back to 8 GB.

For 1700 USD you could make a beast PC that can run all games on max settings. If I were you I wouldn't buy a laptop with average hardware for gaming, I would buy a laptop that's just enough for work and make a awesome desktop gaming PC that is future proof. Gaming isn't the same as it is on a laptop than a desktop. I'm saying this because I bought a Dell XPS laptop but it wasn't enough for me for gaming, the screen is too small, low graphics quality, got really hot and just felt awkward. Price/Performance the desktop ALWAYS wins. I now have a gaming desktop that is great and has a completely different feel than a laptop. And those notebooks are really cheap nowadays for word processing (~$300?).

8GB ram is plenty: Considering the laptop comes with 6GB DDR3-1333 (standard) which should be 1x2GB and 1x4GB stick, you just need to get one stick 1x4GB G. Skill DDR3-1333 sodimm, remove the 1x2GB and put in the x4GB G. Skill DDR3-1333 sodimm this should bring down the overall cost since you won't need 2x8GB G. Skills DDR3-1333 sodimm.

Buy a USB enclosure and use to the included 640GB for the inclosure: Assuming you still want the Intel 320 160GB SSD for performance, the N53S-B1 only has one hard drive bay thus you'll have the 640GB hard drive left over when you install the Intel 160GB SSD and this is the reason for suggestion to get a USB enclosure instead of WD Passport 1TB would bring the overall cost down unless of course you need 1TB.