Because very few people buying expensive phones are doing so for knobs; they're doing so for better cameras, larger screens, the cachet of having an expensive p

Because very few people buying expensive phones are doing so for knobs; they're doing so for better cameras, larger screens, the cachet of having an expensive phone. Well-written and properly-designed software buttons can satisfy the same need as hardware buttons, anyway; when they don't hold up, it should be considered either a UI bug or a design flaw, not just a consequence of the hw-vs-sw choice. (Same with wireless headphones--when they don't work as well as wired headphones, the answer is to fix them, or develop new tech as necessary so that they're at usability parity, not insist that wires are better.)