There is also Sony's Compact models. Same internals as their namesake, but physically smaller.

That said, i wonder how much the "big phone" issue comes from the paradox of wanting slim phones (needs to fit those jeans after all) longer battery life (Wh pr volume is largely a fixed value based on battery chemistry). Stretching the phones on the X and Y then allows a bigger (Wh) battery to be installed.

Never mind that they can also then market it with a higher screen inch number...

You're right, there are lots of reasons why manufacturers want to make larger phones, and there are lots of reasons why some people want to buy larger phones. I don't think that these reasons are wrong, but I also think it's fallacious on the part of the manufacturers to assume that just because a lot of people like large phones doesn't mean that everyone does, and that they shouldn't make smaller ones to cater to that market.

May be an ROI thing. A smaller model means additional design, testing, retooling the production line, etc etc etc.

On top of that you have things like store commissions, carrier subsidies, and who knows what else, going on between the OEM and the end user that affects the choice of model.

One relative of mind went from a small featurephone to a large smartphone, because another relative had gotten the same one. This with the idea that said other relative would be "tech support".

I recently got a 6S. What I really wanted was an SE, but they took so long to release the larger capacity ones that I couldn't wait.

I have a 64GB iPhone SE. What I really wanted was a 128GB SE, but sadly such a thing does not exist.