The great thing about the touch screen is not the UI experience, but the flexibility when it comes to updates that also include new features. When you go the hardware controller route on a product that is still heavily being interrated on, you quickly run out of intuitive ways to clearly label and/or manipulate things or an exzessive number of buttons with integrated screens (to indicate their function in any given context), neither of which is great UX wise and also pretty expensive.
>The great thing about the touch screen is ... the flexibility when it comes to updates that also include new features
That's the main problem. Change is good only if it's optional, by choice. Forced redesign only makes designers happy, because they can now stop looking at that old version that they released some years ago and want to sunset it.
If you look at the 2012 Tesla dashboard, you'll see that it's influenced by really aged design patterns, it's good that they iterate on the UI as long as it's kept in check and doesn't become a Windows 7 to Windows 8 fiasco.
The great thing about the touch screen is not the UI experience, but the flexibility when it comes to updates that also include new features. When you go the hardware controller route on a product that is still heavily being interrated on, you quickly run out of intuitive ways to clearly label and/or manipulate things or an exzessive number of buttons with integrated screens (to indicate their function in any given context), neither of which is great UX wise and also pretty expensive.