Guess what: different people have different necessities. Maybe 12" is too big to be considered a netbook (although many 12ers are marketed that way), so you can call it an "ultraportable" with less power under the hood. You can also get a 12" Sony Vaio, but that will cost 3x the price of a netbook.
I researched and got me a Samsung NC20. 5+ hours battery life (low brightness, wi-fi on), 1,5 Kg (3.3 lbs), and a "typable" keyboard. It "kind of plays" 720p clips on Vimeo, although the CPU get pegged at 100% and it stutters a bit, but I can live with that.
We are always balancing screen size (keyboard size), weight, battery life, feature set and price. We can't have all of them as we wish, thus the need to pick what is most important.