Yes - the Air was an amazing form factor when it was introduced - a game changer. It was 1.36kg - the MacBook of that time was 2.3kg - that’s a HUGE difference, not to mention the skinniness. And it absolutely fit a market, and it absolutely did exactly what a lot of us wanted. The only thing it was missing was a touch screen. (Hard to imagine this actually pre-dated the iPad.)
As @MissionMan says however, they then tried to transfer this philosophy to the rest of their products. The result stripped away functionality, and repairability.