Mobile Devices, Wireless antenna?

Why have antenna connectors fallen so far out of fashion on mobile devices? With devices getting smaller and smaller and wireless networks (3G, 2G, and WiFi) becoming an ever more important aspect of our lives you would think that the designers of these products would give range and reception some serious thought. 

Even if you argue that cell phones are too small for such a connector (*which might be a fair point), you would struggle to justify the same on a full sized laptop. Granted it might cost them $0.1 to add the connector and attach it to the mains board but it is well worth it to the people that would actually plug an antenna in there....

I would consider an antenna connector to be a positive buying feature when selecting a laptop. It costs $0.10 but imagine how many more laptops they might sell? Profit!

Would anyone else like to see an optional antenna connector in their laptop/cell phone/etc?

There's no real need.

A great many mobile phones from the late-1990s that had pointy antennae didn't actually do anything, they were duds.

Most laptops have the antennae built into their displays, going around the edge. The only reason you'd want to add an external antenna is for attaching a directional high-gain antenna, but very very very few people are interested in doing that, and most PCMCIA/ExpressCard WiFi cards add the BNC connectors for this, so that's it really.

Adding an antenna connector does not cost 10 cents per unit: think of the design changes needed to be made to the stock internal wifi cards the OEMS buy, and other things. Things aren't that simple.

There are certification issues with replaceable antennas; devices are certified (and legally allowed) to only output a certain amount of power.  A replacement antenna (obviously) may increase output power; since there's no guarantee at design time that this won't exceed the legal limit, device manufacturers don't allow replacement antennas.

This is why wireless routers (with external antennas) typically use the nonstandard reverse SMA connector for their antennas.  It didn't work, though; it's pretty easy to find (or build) antennas that would increase radiated power well beyond the legal limit.