Touchscreens on phones are great for usability! There are so many things that are enabled by touchscreens that you couldn't do with an array of physical buttons or whatever. OP's comment was specifically for mission critical hardware where safety is paramount.
One could argue that, despite still being called "phones," their primary purpose is not making phone calls anymore. I personally use my device for making phone calls less than 1% of the time I use it (and this includes talk time).
yeah the phone thing is just another app that I use about 5 times a month. it's nice that they include that app but if it wasn't there i'd prob still buy it!
