If you want to do that then plug a nice big monitor into the little laptop. I to grew tired of having no decent small laptops, thats why I held on to my old one for so long.
That's what I do at home, but when I'm working I get bounced from camp to camp so I have to live out of a duffle bag and a backpack for an indefinite period of time. Unless there's a large LCD monitor wherever I happen to be, I use the laptop as is. And when we're putting a camp together for air cargo, large fragile electronics aren't high on the priority list. But flats of soda for the drillers are...but I digress.
You're right though, that is a solution. But we all still carry "bulky" laptops.