Look right, I can remember retro g*mers making jokes about the Game Gear being 2big and 2heavy back in the day, probably in the 2000s. Classic Game Room watchers remember. Same for the Lynx. The Wii U's tea tray controller was derided for being beeeeg. I can also recall people saying that the PS Vita was kinda large back when it came out, which tbf it is pushing the definition of "pocketable" for the boys and takes up a lot of purse space.
It sort of felt like reality broke down in 2017. The first thing I did when the Switch was announced was make a joke about putting a Game Gear in your pocket, but suddenly nobody else gave a damn that the Switch is like ten inches long. Most dildos are not that long.... 
I get that it's a hybrid, but suddenly the dynamic shifted from "if it can't fit my dude pockets it's no good!" to "aw yeah bruh just get a hardcase and throw it in a backpack!" I do support backpack gang, but you almost may as well get a laptop at that point.
Handheld size has become progressively more comical over the years though, with my favourite example being the Steam Deck which is actually considerably longer than a Wii U Gamepad at an XL 13" 
Tell ya what, I couldn't fit that!!
I'm not really against the existence of larger handhelds on its own, I have long fingers and a DS Lite or PS Vita will give me handcramps sometimes. But it's like a weirder version of when all phones became "phablets" and impossible to use with one hand, suddenly all handhelds are as big as the Wii U pad. (Switch Lite excluded, though it's still larger than a Vita) It also seems like the PS Vita and 3DS primed everyone to accept hilariously short battery life? The PSP 3000/Go and DS Lite/DSi could get anywhere from 8 to 20 hours depending on your settings, that was awesome. The 3DS and Vita won't hold out for more than three hours under duress, though. Most modern portable PCs have worse battery than that, even...
I guess I'm just wondering wha happun??? I know there's a large contingent of people who never take handhelds outside the house anyway (based) and just use them on the couch, but I don't think the Deck would be much more pleasant to handle in an armchair or whatever. That's one thicc-ass boi.
Well you see, as you grow older and become an adult, your eyes get worse but your hands and pockets become larger (usually
)
But actually though, I think people would've complained less about the game gear or the Lynx if the size of the screens was much larger than they were, in comparison to the size of the unit. Screen-to-Body ratio is more critical than you think for handhelds, and people are more willing to put up with a large device if the screen is appropriately larger. If the screen on a steam deck or Switch was only 4 inches diagonally, people would be bitching a lot more.
The Wii U gamepad, you've got me there. Idk, I think people just weren't ready for it yet, and it was literally just a controller that you couldn't even use while charging or as the main display at launch. The form factor of the gamepad was thinking so far ahead of where the software or hardware was that it probably shouldn't be surprising that
s didn't get it.
Also, this week was the first time I've charged my 3ds in over a year and I still play a ton of New Leaf, idk what you're on about with a 3 hour battery life.
I did think about the childhood -> adulthood pipeline =) and you might be right about the screens.
Depends which 3DS you have, I think the New/XL gets a little more mileage but a launch 3DS has a stated battery of 3-5 hours and Fire Emblem Awakening drains it in about that.
Metal Gear GZ had a cool thing where the idroid could be handled via your phone or an iPad so you didn't need to real time pause and could glance down at your lap for a real time map with tagged guard movement within a certain range. It was like having the solution radar again but because you had to look at a different screen yourself working with how gz works, it was fucking perfect and it's such a bummer phantom pain didn't use it. Having the cassette tapes play from a different speaker was way better too. I have no idea why phantom pain didn't use it cause it made the experience SOOO much better and had that metal gear meta, instead of snake pulling put his phone to call in the helicopter you do it on your irl phone and the TV screen stays in gameplay mode, it's also cooler to drop you phone on your lap and scramble for.the controller when you spot a guard on the TV while looking back and fourth between thst and the menu on your phone instead of a no pause pause menu. Other games could do this and should, it works.
I have been saying for years that dual screen (or asymetric screens. can't really remember the name) was one of the best ideas in gaming that got fully abandonned no clue why. there are just a few games outside the ds line that actually did that and they were great (GZ did great. wiiu having two screens by default did not use it as much as it should). the DS games having usualy the map or sometimes inventory management on the secondary screen was simply great. many games would totally benefit from that
Wonder if it's some patent bullshit like the loading screen minigames?
i think is more likely to be a "mainstream gamers do not like this" line of thought, like with motion controllers. DS and 3DS did really well, but they had always the "casual" label (analogue to the wii and motion controllers) so "mainstream gamers" stayed away from them. even with the wiiu, that had native dual screens, nintendo tried to cater to a "mainstream gamers" audience and there are too few games that actually uses the dual screen effectively.
there might be more to this, like casual audiences moving to mobile games and only "gamers" buying consoles, but i'm not educated enough in the topic to make a judgement there.
tangentially, but
what the fuck is this??? how did someone actually accepted this?? how did I not hear about it before? this is silly on so many levels. like, patentings characters jumping or so (don't doubt something like this exist, but also don't want to know)