The Nokia N810 wasn't a tiny one either. Would have preferred N900 HW in that case.

Also I don't remember N900 being transflective. If it is, then the touch panel ruins it. When I repaired my N900 I looked through the touch and it is like wearing sunglasses...
What surely is sunlight readable transflective LCD is Nokia N95 8GB or Nokia 6300, but keep in mind that in direct sunlight everything appears in grayscale!!!
So an AMOLED with huge brightness is maybe more desirable afterall.

About the sizes... currently using a Z3 Compact because of small hands and single handed usage. So I understand the concerns.
But for a qwerty I am willing to go bigger instead of a newer Compact Xperia.

But keep in mind that screen to body ratio also counts, and the mentioned iPhone 6 has a horrible screen to body ratio.