I think it depends on your usage of it. If you're going to be coding mostly, then you'll really only be using the keyboard... so a touchscreen may not be needed.
I would agree with that; my sister has a nice touchscreen laptop (~$1000) and she uses it for watching movies, tv shows, etc; mostly media based uses. She loves it and uses it all the time, so I would agree with you that it does depend on what the user will be using it for. Myself, as a programmer, and programming being what I primarily use my laptop for, I would find it unnecessary and I wouldn't pay extra to have it.