[nitrogen]

Despite early detractors, touch interfaces are now dominant in mobile devices for this reason, their flexibility.

I'm in the market for a new flagship phone (mostly for a highly portable connected camera), and if I could get one with a physical keyboard I'd buy it in a heartbeat instead of debating and delaying trying to decide.

Especially in a car, reconfigurability is an advantage for the manufacturer more than it is for the user. Like you hint at in your last paragraph, touchscreens completely deny the use of, ironically, our sense of touch.

[braythwayt]

There is a perfectly valid market for devices with keyboards, home buttons you can press with gloves on, &c. We agree on this.