Ah! Now I'm with you, BuddyBoy.
I think at least part of the reason that they didn't do the touch screen is that they were aiming to optimize the Reader for reading, and therefore left off most of the more involved interaction funtionalities.
Someone else suggested (around here, somewhere ... ) that there might be some power saving motivation for leaving off a touch screen, specifically. I don't know enough about that tech to venture a guess on that. Not one that'd be worth anything, anyway.
