I totally agree with you. I use Blender at home on my laptop, and recently started using a small keyboard with no numpad on my desktop because my other keyboard broke. In general, I find Blender to be fairly useable on a laptop (Thinkpad x260, Japanese keyboard) with the following exceptions:
- The ~ key is in a poor position on many keyboard layouts that aren’t US/UK, so the view pie menu should be on a more conveniently located key, since users with no numpad need to use it often - especially if they are also using ‘emulate 3-button mouse’ in order to deal with a missing 3rd mouse button (or because they prefer that style of navigation).
- Numpad . really shouldn’t be the only key assigned to focus on selected given how often it is used. Move it somewhere within reach of the left hand, such as the F key. This would benefit everyone, even if they have a numpad.
The number keys are currently used to show and hide layers, but this system makes no sense given that the old numbered layer system has been removed. However, I’m not sure using them to change the view is a great idea, because it becomes inconsistent between edit and object modes due to the use of 1-3 to change selection elements. I think alt+number to change view would be better for numpad emulation.