Alas, some of us don't know what is in any upcoming devices, and may be overestimating the role the UI team has in ordaining hardware features, and/or the extent to which your opinions as posted here match said team's official work. (This is not meant as a request for info about any internal conflicts that may or may not be present -- just an acknowledgement that there are uncertainties here, and that many of us are arguing as though they're stacked against our position.)

From Texrat's take, (since he's "on our side", and has insider knowledge of at least the next tablet), I infer what I'd strongly suspected all along: the next tablet, at least, will still have a dpad. So I guess we can resume our pleasant flamewar after the RX-51 is out, when next our discussion turns to hardware speculation.