Touchscreen desktops are a crazy idea. Hold your arm out horizontally in front of you for two minutes. I bet it's already starting to ache.
Touchscreen desktops aren't actually happening. They might be a product offering, sure (by the same clueless OEMs that Microsoft didn't trust with their Windows brand any more, so launched the Surface tablet). That doesn't mean they will sell. And that's not Microsoft's vision at all anyway.
Nobody except clueless OEMs is expecting people to sit at a desk and extend their arm out to touch their monitor. The form factor and use case scenario is all wrong. The solution is to think of applications where a touchscreen display *would* be useful, in a more casual setting where you aren't even necessarily sitting down. Unfortunately for OEMs the markets for these are currently smaller and aren't even in the early adoption phase. Is it really such a surprise that OEMs are clinging onto their established cash cow markets to flog next-gen products? No, not really. This is why Microsoft is sidestepping them with the Surface. Sometimes to punch into a new market to really drive innovation, ignite the spark, you have to do it yourself the hard way.
Touchscreen displays that can be embedded into kitchen walls are.
Touchscreen displays on airplanes, running Metro, are.
Kinect-gesture-controlled displays on your 50" LED TV are.
Tablets that you dock on your desk and which powers your multi-mon setup are; with the tablet then functioning as the most amazing multi-touch trackpad and "HUD" UI imaginable.
You need to think back to all those eerie and slightly cheesy white Japanese TV adverts in the 80s and 90s that represented the future home. Those... are beginning to happen right now.
