The touchpad isn't the problem, it's that the remote is too thin making it difficult to hold and use, it's also hard to grab without accidentally touching the touchpad, and it's hard to figure out which way is up in the dark (exacerbating my previous point) since it has a symmetrical shape. I love all the technical parts of it, Lightning-charging, Bluetooth, microphone, touchpad, it's all genious... it just needs to be a little easier to hold.
There's one thing I would add actually. Gyroscopic cursor a la LG Magic Remote. It is SO ridiculously intuitive. LG puts about 100 too many buttons on their remote, but that functionality is absolutely amazing and I hope Apple adopt it for the next remote iteration.
I've used the lg gyro remote. It's nice, but sometimes I have to recalibrate it because the remote went too off the edge and now my cursor is completely offset from where exactly I'm pointing at. Fine for me, but I think lot of people won't get that. Also I had to ask my brother how to turn that cursor on.