Having less of the picture in focus is actually an advantage. Look at my picture of a bottle on a mountain background below; it's out of focus on purpose. You can't do that with a point and shoot, and my FZ-30 can barely do it.
Artistically, it serves the purpose of focussing the attention on something, and emphasizing depth, frontground vs background, object vs context, etc.
To obtain this effect you need maximum iris operture. In this picture I had to put on a grey filter and 1/1200 exposure, as well as sitting quite close to the bottle while zooming up a bit.
The opposite of this is a camera obscura, ie a pinhole camera, whereby light goes through a tiny puncture, instead of an actual lens system. Everything that gets (somewhat slowly) captured on the sensor is basically in focus. That's about what you get with a point-and-shoot in good lighting condition; just about everything should be focused.
Typically, the more expensive a camera, the larger the sensor and operture, and therefore the more you get this effect.

A 'centrist' is someone who's neither on the left, nor on the left.