Lots of interesting thoughts and some experiences.
Yes, compared to larger handguns, smaller handguns are usually harder for many people to shoot well. Hardly surprising.
Yes, many owners dislike shooting the smaller guns, and may not invest the requisite time and effort to try and maximize their skills using them. Again, hardly surprising.
Yes, the very attributes that usually make small handguns so preferable for lawful concealment typically makes them more difficult to shoot, especially under stress. Worth keeping in mind.
Yes, "pocketable" (holstered) diminutive handguns are generally chambered in a smaller, less powerful caliber than most of the larger, common service/defensive handguns. This is a mental coin toss. Now we're really at the lower end of things in the already "low-powered" defensive handgun, when it comes to the realm of ballistics. It is what it is, and it deserves some careful consideration by folks. After all, if the venerable .25's, .32's, .380's (and, of course, .22's) were powerful enough to make the leap from pocket guns to duty/service guns, they'd have done so. In the world of compromise when it comes to handguns, the smaller pocket guns (and their calibers) are leading candidates for the very definition of "compromise". Pick your compromise, and be prepared to accept the consequences.
These are all very valid points that certainly bear careful consideration.
That said, I commonly carry one of several different J-frames, and I've picked up a couple of LCP's in recent years.
I've even picked up a couple of NAA mini revolvers chambered in .22MAG, to complement an older one I picked up many years ago (and which had remained in the back of my safe until 3-4 years ago). While usually considered as novelty guns, or a type of "gentleman's pocket jewelry", they seem pretty nicely done little firearms, and I sometimes like to think of them as filling the niche of being an Onion Field" type of pocketable gun.
My J-frames saw a lot of use when I was frequently working training/qual ranges as a firearms instructor at my former agency, but then I'm a long time revolver shooter and have used them for many years. Yes, as they become increasingly lighter they offer some increasing felt recoil snap, and it doesn't take long for the bottom of my trigger finger to start to get hammered (rising trigger guard hitting my finger when +P loads are used). I do it, though, because I like to carry one or another of them and want to keep my skills from rusting away.
I remember when I bought my first Airweight, an earlier production 642-1, when they were first released. I'd ever only used steel snubs, and even then, mine had been gathering dust in the safe for a few years, following my increased interest with some compact pistols I'd been acquiring. I invested the time to shoot a couple cases of ammunition through it, using an assortment of budget ball, LRN & LSWC, and then increasingly adding +P loads to the mix. I also used an available 640 in our training safe (early one marked with the +P+ designation), and took advantage of the timely availability of several cases of some former revolver 110gr +P+ .38 Spl duty ammunition that needed to be burned up, putting in more range time to reawaken and dust off my DA revolvers skills with snappy recoiling little snubs.
Nowadays I own more than half a dozen of the little 5-shot revolvers, with the majority of them having aluminum or Scandium aluminum frames. A couple of the lightweight snubs are chambered in .357 Magnum, but after using Magnum loads to do a couple of quals with the hard-kicking little snubs (just to demonstrate that I could), I eventually settled on mostly carrying one or another of my usual +P loads in them. One of my more pristine snubs, a M37-2DAO, only sees standard pressure loads, out of deference to it's older "pre-Magnum" size frame and metallurgy.
I've done enough range time over the years with them (while working as a LE firearms instructor) to know their, and my, limitations in using them. I wouldn't be carrying them if I couldn't run them well enough to justify it to myself.
I feel much the sane way after a few years of range drills, practice & qual sessions with my LCP's. The little .380 guns were a bit snappy at first, which is understandable considering their approx 9oz weight. However, more range time made them easier to use, and it eventually reached a point where I was running them as fast and as accurately as my J's, when staying within 10-15yds on drills and qual courses-of-fire. Sure, if I'm going to push the distance out to 30-50yds, to assess my skillset basics at distance now and again, I'd much rather use one of my 5-shot snubs. The heavier bullet weights in my .38 snubs seem to produce some better results at longer range accuracy practice. (Well, that, and there's something still inherently comforting about the predictable long and smooth DA/DAO trigger stroke of the S&W snubs.)
I've not carried it for a long time although still occasionally practice with it ..... just in case. 
