People who are complaining about the gamepad are mostly people who aren't willing to make a transition or who think it looks awkward and heavy. So it has to be awkward and heavy? The thing is the gamepad gives the Wii U it's own personality like Kinect 2 for the Xbox One.
It makes things possible we didn't have as a standard before. Typing is a dream on the Wii U compared to 360, PS3. Also navigation. The Miiverse is also another reason why the pad was a good idea. Sharing drawings is genius. Miiverse is very underrated.
Whining won't help, just stop complaining about and simply don't buy it then.
EDIT: Also it's interesting.... after Wii U almost every Console Maker intergrates a touch device on their controller, Valve, Sony, Ouya.....interesting isn't it. We wouldn't have those without Ninty ;)
