The questions are not "are touchscreens performant" or "are touchscreens dangerous" ... we already knew the answers to those questions and there was no reason to run this multiple model generations experiment.

The question is: who was in charge of these design decisions and what kind of respect and esteem did these people command as leaders at these large companies ?

A followup question: what professional consequences accompany terrible design decisions in an arena where such decisions are life threatening ?