One thing I don't like about Nintendo is that they're always a step behind themselves. The portable's always behind the console. The GB-GBC was pretty much a portable NES, which was out around the SNES. The GBA was a portable SNES, which was out around the GAMECUBE. The DS is a portable N64-with-a-touch-screen, and only here with the Gamecube.
Dude, do you realize how hard it is to make a decent handheld in the first place? I mean seriously, they use the best processors they can in handhelds at reasonable manufacturing cost, but that's never going to be as good as the current console processors. Handhelds are never going to match consoles in power until they figure out how to make chips and everything for consoles as small as they need to be for handhelds, and then they have to be power-efficient enough to have decent battery life.
*builds a machine that automatically distributes food*
There you go. *pulls lever*