I agree, I much prefer this style of pointer to a trackpad because I don't need to move my hands.

I love it, too. I hate that Lenovo no longer makes a ThinkPad with only that style pointer any longer. I always felt the trackpad was a big waste of space since I never use them.

I like the following logic: you could always disable it, and only switch on for the time someone else is using your laptop, so win-win.

But getting rid of 7-row keyboard and clicky mouse buttons, so that a huge trackpad would fit? Not worth it.

Eh, as a T440s owner (granted, my first Thinkpad) I was a bit apprehensive about the lack of buttons but I actually exclusively use the Trackpoint now. The clickpad does click down like a button which is a little weird at first but you quickly get used to where the "buttons" are and then it just feels like normal. I use the middle click scroll a lot too. At least in Linux you can adjust the precise locations of the buttons yourself, I think in Windows you also get some options for configuring the button locations if the defaults don't feel right. Right now I feel like this is the best input system I've had on a laptop.

I've tried the new big button T440s and really don't like the amount of force the big touchpad takes to click.

You'll be disappointed in X240. The buttons for trackpoint are removed in X240. Instead, they made the trackpad clickable. It's a miserable experience. It is simply impossible to use trackpoint with trackpad enabled because you inevitably slide finger over trackpad to register a click. That moves the cursor. Disabling trackpad made trackpoint somewhat usable but clicking the whole trackpad is much harder than just a button.

It is, however I find that sometimes I get a sore and after a couple hours of use and I have to switch to a mouse.