I understand Joeblows point, he's referring to when the iPad is on a smart keyboard sitting on a desk would be the same experience as a mac with a touchscreen interface. If I remember Schiller commenting on this, he said no one wanted to reach up to touch their screen. It should be mentioned however, that this is a small feature/use application of iPad's versatility. Its saying 'it can do this and more'.
But at the same time, I have a hard time believing the whole non-touch friendly argument. Ive only had great experiences using splashtop remote desktop to basically make my ipad a touchscreen monitor for my windows and mac computers. Ive never had any difficulty using it for touch. Obviously the mouse/trackpad is more productive, but just when needing to do a single click on something on the mac (like hitting a "next" on an interactive video), a simple click on the screen is more natural than moving the cursor and click. I just hope people know that if Apple went this route, Id expect the prices of the macbooks to be much higher than they are now, id blindly guess a $300 premium or so; one that I wouldnt be willing to pay for (similarly with the touchbar).
Touchscreens are just sort of an common expectation now in things we use. I still remember this one time in class I tried the pinch-to-zoom on a piece of paper my professor gave me to try and expand the text.