I can't really imagine a situation in which a laptop is any more necessary than a tablet. I guess the only big instance is if you're a business person who needs a fully capable portable computer for presentations, and slideshows. Otherwise, a tablet is perfectly fine for mobile web-browsing and minor word processing. For the college student, there are computers in almost ever 5 ft radius. Often, with expensive programs that you need to take advantage of anyway. Most students on my campus (admittingly a more high tech research university) keep their laptops at home these days, and just use tablets. If the laptop is going to stay at home anyway, why not just get a desktop for a cheaper price that is more capable, and can possibly be just as portable when it comes to moving residence? I'm sure there are individuals who absolutely need a laptop over other portable computing devices, but I can't understand (as you do) it to be the rule rather than one of many exceptions. 

Alot of true in this. You really do not need to spend alot to get a system with good perfomance.

My current PC can run at that res and with maxed settings 10yrs old games or older!
Maybe, if I wait enough, my next mid-low-end, low-power consumption PC will be able to run most games at high settings and 1080p @45fps or more. It will be enough for me that it run at 60fps or more racing sims, FPS' and other fast paced games at decent graphics settings, but I'll gladly settle on 40fps at high graphics settings for the most gorgeous RPGs and adventures.

For all the reasons I just said.  If you want a gaming desktop: get one!  It will be half the price of that "Desktop Replacement" and stronger as well.  And you can keep the monitor too since it won't be attatched to the machine.

If you want a laptop, get one that is light and lasts longer than 2 hours.  Otherwise you might as well not even have one.

Which is the reason why most PC gamers strive for locked 60FPS. It's not really exaggerated, just a good baseline. If you scratch the most useless and power hungry effects from the ultra presets it's a lot easier to hit a smooth 60.

The only difference between a laptop and a netbook is that a netbook has a smaller screen, is lighter and is much less powerful. Honestly, unless the few hundreds of grams in weight bother you, there is absolutely no reason to get a netbook.

A tablet is ok for very, very light-weight web browsing. Can't even browse vgchartz on one. You can't type long posts on post in an adequate amount of time on one. There's no DVD/Blu-Ray drive. You cannot save files to it.

What would the students do with their tablets at uni other than checking mails? You can't do much else with that. I take my laptop with me when I go travelling (I take both tablet and laptop actually).

I can't run all games like that, but then again I haven't upgraded my PC in over 3/4 years!

I can browse vgchartz fine on my rooted Nook HD+ with CyanogenMod 11 (heck I've done it on my cheap android phone with Kit Kat.) In fact all the browsing I need to do: Youtube, Email, Facebook, Web Forums I do fine on my tablet. The only thing I really use my laptop for is downloading large files when I go to school (they have super fast internet.) And before I built my desktop a few months ago I used my laptop as my main computer. My tablet has all of my ebooks and most of my web-browsing is done on it. Everything else is done on my desktop. I guess if I travelled more, a laptop would be necessary, but usually the places I do travel to are for recreation (camping/hiking/etc) and internet would be iffy to come across. Some people seem to get by fine without dvd drives in their Macbooks and ultra-thin laptops. And any movie you want to watch you can just rip using your desktop/external drive and put it on your tablet. I actually have about 15 gb of MIT Courseware Lectures in various subjects on my tablet, which I watch when I'm on the bus.