I'm baffled by this. Touchbar is innovative to some degree, but I usually connect my Macbook Pro to a bigger display and close it—making touchbar useless. So disappointed by Apple lately...
The Cinema Display is not so much different from the Mac Mini in that sense. You feel bad that you don't have a new one, until you realize just how much better the alternatives have become.
I bet most people don't ever use it after the first week.
For me, constantly looking down at the keyboard somehow doesn't feel natural. I prefer to keep my eyes on the screen.
It for instance controls the camera, so without hacking the touchbar it is impossible to use the camera without the light turning on.
It also controls the fingerprint reader in a way that makes it hard to get the secrets that are protected by the fingerprint without actually providing the fingerprint.
That actually opens up a huge can of worms, as networking as a host of security issues. One example is with a VPN connection. For obvious security reasons, when a lot of VPNs are active, they force all networking to flow through them. That is problematic, because the remote side has no way to route the toolbar traffic back to it.
So, VPN software is now busily building out exceptions to their routing rules. Don't worry, I'm sure this won't lead to bugs or future security holes...