I wanted small phone after 4 years with op7t and went logically for S23. But few years back it would be massive phone. Nowadays I found it like a perfect sweet spot of size, weight.. Performance, software and camera wise it's the only option.
I got the S23 because it was smaller, then returned it and got a bigger phone. I guess I'm one of the people that only thought they wanted a smaller phone.
I always found big phones very hard to use (even though I have big hands), so I preferred small phones.
Then I got an S21, which was borderline too big (relative to the S10e), so I was looking for a solution and found phoneloops. Using this is so comfortable, I figured I don't really need small phones anymore.
I dropped my S21 and a couple of things went broke, so I figured I would try an S23 ultra with phoneloops.
It was comfortable to use with the loops. I liked the huge screen for consuming content and I found the pen pretty handy at times. But I just couldn't get used to the thickness and weight. I didn't like using it because of it. After two months I grabbed my old phone and was blown away by it's small size and weight. I ordered some replacement parts and switched back (daughterboard, loudspeaker, battery, glue). I appreciate it's size even more now.
I guess if they would make a 170g, 8mm thick phone with a 7 inch display (FLAT), I would definitely give it a try.
I didn't try the S21, but I always thought the S8 was a very comfortable phone to hold. It was tall, but narrow, and very thin. I'm not sure I'd go back to that now, but I did like it a lot at the time.
There are just a handful of flagship phones coming out in the last two years that are sub 69mm wide: the zenphones, and the xperia 5 IV and V (and the apple iphone SE 2022)