> The usability on a laptop goes out the window as you realize you can't accelerate past the edge of your touchpad. Getting to the top item in the menu -- maybe even the most important item -- is extremely hard. You rapidly become limited to the number of items you can have in this menu.

Not really. Put a second finger at the bottom of the touchpad, then release the first finger (without dragging while both fingers are down). Poof, you just got yourself a whole touchpad's worth of additional height.

They've worked like this forever, and since I pretty much only use a touchpad, movement like this is pretty second-nature for me.