Good points, especially the case for readability, i.e. the need for either a good iconic representation or a short word. In our game setting, there has been so

Good points, especially the case for readability, i.e. the need for either a good iconic representation or a short word. In our game setting, there has been so far a good iconic match with a short word (e.g. buildings that you build to the specified position), but I can see that this will be a big problem in a more abstract cases. I don't see scrollable list-like context menus (as suggested in an another comment) very good either, it seems to work against the benefits of touch UI. Maybe I need to play with Android first to be convinced. Now that I think, Photoshop-style 'temporarily' modal actions picked from toolbar could be actually a good pick for a multi-touch UI. In mouse-based systems, frequently switching between tools can be really cumbersome (without keyboard shortcuts), but in multitouch systems it could actually work quite well.