What difference does size of a Point and Shoot camera make?

There are variety of point and shoots in the market. Some are slim (the compact ones) nice enough to fit inside a pocket and other (those that look like SLRs) are quite bulky.
Even in the super zoom (guess that's above 15x Optical Zoom) section, cameras are available in both the categories and they still have big lot of features that will surely confuse the hell out of a common customer.

Question: I suppose there are some technical advantages (in spite of close optical zooms and similar features of the cameras below mentioned) of the bulky SLR style P & S, but I don't know it. Help me clear this out please.

I'm comparing cameras like Nikon L120, Nikon S9100, Fujifilm F500, Nikon P500 etc

I'd love to go technical with the answer until it gets too much.

Hmm… In a bulky model you have more room for the lens. So you can do a bit better lens and one which can be a bit more sturdy,.

The bulkier models often also feature a viewfinder which is nice since most screens are useless in bright sunlight. And of course you can fit some better controls.

Just my $0.02.

For me, a tiny little camera is too fiddley as I have big hands and fingers. I prefer some space on the camera controls.