...makes laptops and netbooks clumsy.
Maybe that's why MS designed their new system the way they did. It looks better to me, design wise, than other laptops.
I like your trackball concept myself. I'd just go with a USB plug-in infrared mouse myself.
Repairs look like they could be costly. A magnesium case?! Owners better hope it doesn't get dinged bad enough to have to replace it!
If USB had the capability of physically latching — it’s a mere slide in, slide out connection, which, like Firewire, I never understood the rationale for the wimpiness of — then stuff like track balls could physically hang on to the side of a laptop.