Personally I think a touchpad Kindle with eink is overkill. The touchpad is nice, but I don't see why I would ever need it if I'm just casually reading. That plus I'm a sucker for slimness and the added dimensions killed it for me :)
Their "touch" screen uses infrared instead of a capacitive or resistive panel, and I anticipate lots of accidental and frustrating page turns. It looks like the touch model has no side buttons from the press photos, so tapping on the screen is necessary instead of applying slightly more pressure to the bezel you're already holding. This may just be me, but I find that to work just fine.
The battery life of the base model is half that of the touch model, sure, but it's still a month. Is that really a problem for anyone? They can't use an outlet or USB port four hours a month?
Trimming space by getting rid of the keyboard and speeding up page turn "flashes" are great upgrades to an already great device.