My X1 Carbon has 2 USB-c, 2 USB-a 3.0 ports and I think an HDMI, and a MicroSD card port and SIM port. (It's not with me so I can't check for the HDMI) It's 14", but weighs about a half pound less. 16G RAM. There really are laptops out there with much more i/o capability.
My XPS15 has 2 USB-a, one USB-C, power, headphone, HDMI, and a full sized SD Card port. 32G RAM It's pretty heavy, but it has a 15" OLED that puts all my other machines to shame. (even my QLED TV and my 4K LG Monitor.)
In fact, most mid to upper end laptops have more ports than Macbooks.
My 15" 2019 intel Macbook Pro, which I probably spent more on that any other machine had 4 USB-c. 32G RAM. It died of swollen batteries.
My 2020 Intel Mac Mini has more ports than that though, and 64G RAM.
And then there's my desktop, 2 DP, 4 mini DP's, 6 USB-a, 2 USB-c (1 thunderbolt3/USB-c) All video ports can do video at the same time, mic and headphones, SD Card, Blu ray writer, and wifi6 wireless. ethernet. 128G RAM and 3 SSDs. I think that's it, I'd have to look to see if it has anything else. And it cost only a couple hundred more than my M1 MBA.
I have more machines, but nothing as good.
So yes, raw performance means something to me and power frugalness doesn't, but saying there's a lack of ports in laptops, really doesn't ring true, unless you only buy current Apple machines. I'm wondering if the new machine next week will do 64G RAM and have plenty of ports, and at the very least 8 performance cores and miniLED. I might have to think about buying.