The air is designed for non degenerates who don’t actually use the laptop in their laps. For us degens we need active cooling lest we are thermal throttled from belly heat
Shockingly this has not been an issue for me
I got a used M2 Air a year ago and it's the best Apple laptop I've ever owned. And I've owned dozens.
Plus it runs Asahi linux on the metal.
No agreed, for me it’s about the incidentals - nicer camera, nicer screen, WiFi 6e, large drive etc