I think they could have generated more interest and more money just selling them with more designs and sports team branding (The Surface is already used by the NFL, so some sort of relationship between them and MS already exists).
As for the knobs and sliders, I agree it would look 'cool' to see real LEDs light up for your fader or the active loops on your sequencer or whatever, but the reason actual musicians like physical knobs and sliders is because of the tactile response they provide. Thats why Serato's vynil controllers are still popular with a lot of people (http://serato.com/controlvinyl). With a touch keyboard like the one that the surface has you get the worst of both worlds. The (lack of) flexibilty of a hardware device and the (lack of) tactile response of a touchscreen.