The scroll wheel is a step up over both d-pad and touch screen. I also had a Creative Zen which has a scroll lane and it was great too. Why? Because interaction

The scroll wheel is a step up over both d-pad and touch screen. I also had a Creative Zen which has a scroll lane and it was great too. Why? Because interaction was a factor of motion control and it has great feedback. Same with Apple touchpad. Yep you still have to learn it, but it was something done in a few minutes and fairly visual. There's a reason a lot of actually important interfaces still have a lot of buttons, knob, lights, and levers and other human shaped controls. Because, they rely on more than visual to actually convey information.