OVER JUICING THE RAM OF MY LAPTOP - is it the right thing to do?

I can't tell you whether or not your system can take the extra memory.   But I can tell you that it's standard practice to list the maximum RAM size for a system based on the maximum capacity of the DIMMs available when the system was made.   For example, if your motherboard has four DIMM slots and if the biggest DIMMs that were available when it was made were 2GB apiece, then the specs would likely be spec'd as being capable of taking 8GB of memory.   Manufacturers do this because they come under fire if they list a maximum capacity that isn't actually possible with existing parts at the time the system is sold.

In most cases that I've seen, if larger DIMM modules of the same type (i.e., DDR3 modules in DDR3 slots) later become available, they'll work just fine.