Reminds me of this awesome write-up by Jakob Nielsen:
http://www.useit.com/alertbox/20040315.html
He compares the Tivo remote (another very good remote design, without a touchscreen) with a standard remote.
As for touchscreens, I think we are jumping to them too quickly. Look at what happened to Ford in J.D. Power’s survey of quality. Huge drop because of a crappy user interface on the computer. Let’s work to get really great button interfaces and save the touch screens only for when absolutely necessary.
http://www.activityvehicle.com/2011/06/myford-touch-hurts-ford-in-jd-power-quality/
BTW, if you don’t subscribe to the useit blog, you should. Maybe 3/4 of the stuff is talking about web sites and programs, but the other 1/4 of the really relevant design stuff is gold.