It has perfectly usable buttons. Adding touch feels like straying from the core proposition to have a minimal reader.

if its still as open, I'm pretty sure the touchscreen can be worked out to work well.

but I really agree with you, I'd love to have a frontlight on it. That's literally all I'd wanted over the current device. No touchscreen necessary.

but between touchscreen + frontlight and neither, perhaps I'd be willing to have a touchscreen so long as the software is good (which something like crosspoint I'm sure would nail)