I just don't think anyone saw the point. Most of the detractors are people who could sit down in front of their nice TV with their ps3 and play uncharted there. why play a comparatively subpar version on a tiny screen? I always thought they marketed the vita wrong though - nobody that had that freedom really needed a vita. People who don't necessarily have that kind of TV access (married/family people), commuters, kids - they didn't really seem to shoot for these markets. They nailed the pickup and play with virtually flawless suspend, but marketing to the mainstream gamer crowd was a mistake. if thats the market they wanted they needed more gravity rush type games to give a reason to play it over the trillion ps3 games available. even with ps4 remote play they haven't figured out who actually uses it. honestly I don't think there is much of a handheld market left, but we'll see what Nintendo does in the next couple years to confirm that.
If they could've found a way to make it cheaper it could've been a good ps3 alternative, but the memory card pricing is out of whack still and they didn't find a suitable way to do that until pstv hit $50-$60 (and of course compatibility is a burden there).