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.
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)