>I do have a dual monitor setup with HD screens. Do they really think that its easier for advanced users to use touchscreens? come on, that is nuts...

You're not being forced to use touchscreen -- Win8 does support mouse and other pointer devices. The thing that takes a bit of getting used to are the gestures.

The main problem that I've got with touch interface (using fingers) is lack of precision -- fingers are too fat (large contact area) and squishy (easily distort, causing contact area to change shape and position). When "target" is too small or when I need greater precision in positioning, I switch to stylus. One annoyance I've noticed with some multi-touch gestures is sometimes there is enough of an ambiguity in them that sometimes you get the wrong action (e.g. the "rotate" and "rescale" gesture where you "grab" the corners -- there are times I was trying to rescale and got a rotation, and a rescale when I was trying to rotate).

Speaking of alternate methods of data entry -- voice is one of those things that often "sounds like a good idea" until you actually employ it in practice. Inputting something general text might be OK -- but I'd think it would be horrible for something like program code. Perhaps for the numerous punctuation characters, we may have to adopt "audible punctuation" (e.g. Victor Borge style)?

One thing that works great in movies and TV, but probably won't work very well in real life is the in-the-air gesturing. Somehow I'd think there may be too much room for misinterpretation (imagine accidentally deleting a file because you were swatting a fly).