remember when Nintendo handhelds were designed well?
the DSi was so long ago.
The DSi XL is much better than the DSi tbh. But yes, since then they've become kind of meh at designing hardware. Even the Wii U looks to be worse (way bigger, chunky, curved in weird places and the red sync button on the front, etc). The Gamecube and Wii are so well designed and the Wii U looks like the 3DS in terms of design (took the last generation design but altered the design for the worse and made it less sleek and appealing). What the fuck happened to the people designing the hardware?
EDIT: Stealth20k, for the past week or so you've been damage controlling the screen scratching problem. There is a problem and just because you're a fan of Nintendo doesn't mean you have to ignore faults in hardware. I saw MS fans doing the same around the time of the Xbox 360 launch. If the problem doesn't affect you (because you don't put the 3DS in your pocket for example), then fine. But don't go around implying that it's normal to have problems with hardware or that just because it's a minority of users having problems we shouldn't be acknowledged. That sets a bad precedent.
Also, I doubt it's a "minority" having problems as it affects all 3DS. It's a part of the design (2 asymmetrical screens with the rim of the touch screen hitting the upper screen due to slight pressure). I'd say we aren't seeing a bunch of complaints because people just don't care or not they're not putting it in their pockets because the size of the device or other reasons. It's just an inherent flaw to the design. All 3DS devices could have problems in certain situations. One of which is putting it in pockets, which for a handheld system is laughably bad.
