I agree. And to add, I have owned remotes without buttons for many years, still have one, but I prefer the feel and usability of remotes with buttons, specially ones with good design that I can operate without looking at it...
I am perfectly willing to give it a shot too, in fact I played Wii games extensively with kids and adults of all ages for a little while, saw the benefit of the tile functions as a real innovation applied to a TV remote. Point and click was Apple's biggest revolution to the personal computers, it is nice to see DISH is applying it to TV STBs.
But DISH must prepare for a transition period when many "old farts" (I mean 40+) will have to gradually get used to such idea, and at the meantime allow them to use a keypad remote if they do not like the touchpad.
My suggestion is redesign the remote, add keypad to it, in addition to the touchpad, let people experience both. Then make the user interface as suitable for the touchpad operations as possible so that people can see the benefit of the touchpad. I am sure the vast majority will gladly be converted to a new technology, as long as they are not forced into it, rather take their own time to be convinced they want that new gig.
Notice the PCs and Macs today, as much as Apple was the genius for inventing the mouse, we still use a keyboard?