I don't think I disagree with you about what role the tablet plays in my setup. The other features of the iPad made it desirable for me, over carrying a laptop

I don't think I disagree with you about what role the tablet plays in my setup. The other features of the iPad made it desirable for me, over carrying a laptop, and the remote VM solved the "how can I write code while only carrying around an iPad" problem. The fact that I'm doing it by using the iPad as a thin client for a remote VM is mostly transparent for me, given my use case.