Laptops are tools. What you want depends on what you do.
I'm also unhappy with modern offerings, though I come from the Linux side. Whilst I use Macs, I've never been a fan of either the hardware (keyboard and touchpad aren't my thing). I've been exceptionally disappointed by Lenovo's products and behaviour of the past few years.
My druthers would be a lightweight, portalble, Linux-friendly system with a trackpoint-type pointer control.
I've been using an Android 9" tablet which is mostly good hardware, and an absolute obscenity in terms of the OS, vendor (Samsung) lockdown, and apps.
This with a folio-type self-supporting laptopable keyboard case is close to the perfect form-factor system, most especially for reading printed material (many many many ebooks and articles, most in PDF form).
But nothing about this system is built for privacy, creation, complex interaction, or organising and managing large quantities of content. As a Linux box it might work.
Laptops fail to offer the flexibility of keyboardless operation (and bending keyboards back ... tends to break them), and stink for reading online content generally.
I've also noticed that large-format tablets (9" - 10") don't seem to be offered by anyone.
A decent userland, rootable / ROMable system (Samsung's BDSM lockdown basically means I'm fucked in terms of Rowhammer), and sane hardware (the Logitech keyboard's also been sheer failure mostly due to the company's failure to honour its warranty in any meaningful fashion, and the tightly-coupled HW binding of tablet and keyboard).
I've about had it with hardware, period.