If you want to game on a laptop and ensure you have plenty of space, you need to lose the DVD/BD player and install a second large volume 2.5" HDD there for storage. I don't know of anyone in their right mind who expects to install and play any number of today's games, let alone tomorrow's, on a laptop with a 250GB SSD.
Yes, it most certainly does have to do with living in the now. If you want to play games of today and tomorrow, you need the storage space. And everything is relative, too. In 2005, Half-Life 2 took up 5GB of a typical 120GB PC drive, and the typical laptop back then only had a 20 or 40GB HDD. So really, the HL2 space requirement impact on a 20GB laptop was not much different than today's 50GB games on a 250GB SSD. It amazes me how people expect today's graphics in games to use yesterday's storage space requirements.