personally I do not like touch screens at all on anything other than toys or PDA's. I love the sliders on the Audya and the tactile switches for arranger parts fills, etc. I would hate to lose those in favour of consumer pressure to have 'the latest'. Some things are better left alone - particularly if its control features.
As screens continue to decrease in price its only a matter of time before we lose hardware controls (which are expensive to manufacture and assemble)...but I am not looking forward to it that day.
I think TWD is right, fly by wire can be dangerous when the comms goes, your gone, touch screens make changing things very easy and you can upgrade for years with a touch screen, I don't think it will be long before we do go down this route