No worries, constructive criticism and debate are healthy parts of conversation.  I still can't get my hand around the idea of someone buying the more expensive 3D model not to play the games in 3D.  If you can add depth to your games, which it does, why wouldn't you?  It would be like buying a color tv, but programing it to play everything in black and white (an extreme comparison, I know).

I used Kinect as a comparison because it was a feature that launched with the Xbox One.  You couldn't buy an Xbox One at launch without the Kinect.  6 months later Microsoft removed the Kinect from the Xbox One and sold it separately to lower the price of the console.  Two years later, however, the Xbox One S was released with the Kinect Port completely removed.  While, the 3D in the 3DS does make it more expensive than its 2D counterpart, enough people still buy the 3D variant to warrant Nintendo still manufacturing it.  If it was as detrimental to sales as people have inferred, Nintendo could have phased it out completely with the 2DS line starting as early as 2013.  Which would be the same timeline as the Xbox One S axing the Kinect port, which is why I think it's an apt comparison.  To date, over 70 million 3DS family systems have sold.  Well over 60 million of those are from the 3D line.  The 3D model is still manufactured and sold today, 6 years into the release of the line.  

3DS was enough to finish off Sony's portables and that's all that matters.

One thing I've wondered for a while is what would've happened had Gunpei not left Nintendo. The Wonder Swan was very much Game Boy esque with very dated, albeit efficient, (30 hours of play with ONE AA battery?!?) technology. Would he have some how crippled Nintendo's advancement in the handheld market with his emphasis on withered technology?? Not so much with the GBA, since that was technically withered technology based heavily on the SNES, but with the DS, which was completely different from any handheld seen at that point in time.

I don't know.  Once you start delving into how much more input Satoru Okada had with the tech that went into the Gameboy, and the fact that Yokoi was actually looking into using color LCD for the Virtual Boy before finding out how prohibitively expensive the device would be, it leaves open multiple possibilities.  Also, Hiroshi Yamauchi was the one who pushed for the next handheld after Gameboy Advance to be dual screen.  The DS was profitable at launch (as far as I know) retailing at $149, which was cheaper than the launch price of the Virtual Boy, and only slightly more expensive than the GBA.  Between Yamauchi's insistence on the 2nd screen, and the fact that doing so would not have rendered the price-point unfriendly to consumers; I think Nintendo's handheld division could have followed the same trajectory either way.