[romwell]

Sure, I don't disagree with you here. Climate control should be dedicated buttons.

There's a place for middle ground though: sequences of button presses.

For instance, keying in 1-3-4 to enable this or that feature (where the buttons are 1 to 5).

It can be done purely by touch, but it'd be hard to discover and memorize such sequences without a screen. However, once you discover them, you don't need to look at the screen.