For my part, I just can't work on a smaller screen. I certainly get what you mean regarding getting away with smaller screens with a higher quality and/or higher resolution screen - I'll never go back to less than full HD for my phones, for example, - but the distance of my laptop screen is largely dictated by the attachment to the keyboard (if someone offers a hinged display that can be lifted up closer to the face, perhaps) and I've found not being forced to lean in towards the screen while working is essential to my physical comfort, but I want to be able to largely fill my field of view.
My current laptop "only" has a full hd screen, but it was well over half the cost of my not-at-all-cheap custom build laptop when I bought it, and I expect to spend a similar proportion of the cost of my next laptop on an above average screen (edit: which will mean at a "4K" 17" screen, most likely)
I'm all for a single computing device, but not a single screen size. I don't think we'll ever settle on a single screen-type until/unless we have good enough head mountable screen replacements.