The problem is not that virtual keyboards are small: it's that they are terrible. They offer no tactile feedback, so I can't touch type on them (yes, I touch type on my phone's physical keyboard). Making them larger doesn't really help. I type mainly with my thumbs when I'm using the phone keyboard, and with a virtual keyboard I'm much more likely to (a) miskey (because I can't feel the boundaries of the keys, only 'see' them) and (b) not know that I've miskeyed. A bigger screen does get rid of the problem where the virtual keyboard takes up the entire screen (I will honestly never get over this whole "why do you want a physical keyboard taking up screen space" objection -- (a) a side-slide keyboard does not occupy screen space and (b) that terrible virtual keyboard DOES ARGH), but tablets are pretty much the exact wrong size: they're too small to ten-finger-type and too large to type with thumbs. :/

I may end up trying them and perhaps I will learn to love Swype, but my experiences with these things have not been promising. v_v