I for one, have owned a MacBook Air and used several netbooks, and they are certainly not in the same category by any stretch of the imagination.

Don't pretend you can lump them together unless size is the ONLY criteria.

Needing more ports is a legitimate gripe, especially for someone who does a lot of development with hardware.

For me and most other Air users, it wasn't a problem. I didn't even mind the external DVD drive most of the time. The only time I did was when flying and wanting to watch a DVD. I just started ripping them before the trip.