You can't see where your finger is in relation to the screen if it's just a pad, so how could they use it other than swiping motions which just seem gimmicky to me.  People say you could use it for browsing, but honestly the joysticks work fine for that for me.  I just hope they don't have it and keep the money going into the console itself with an affordable cost.  Do stuff that doesn't require the controller becoming more expensive like triggers, vita dpad, and making it a little bigger.

Its not about doing something special its about not getting yelled at for a lack of "iinovashoun".

A cursor in the OS UI, not in game. No the joysticks don't work well for browsing. Games can utilize various touch like control inputs similar to Vita and Smartphone games. It will be just like using a laptop. A touchpad is really cheap.

Multitouch.

A welcome evolution over WiiU.

I'm pretty sure they could find something.

I'd say around 1 year after 3D Mario comes out we start seeing implementations.

I don't see the value of such a small touchpad. It wouldn't even be big enough for web navigation, wth is it there for?

I look to developers for innovation, not some gimmicky way to enter my commands.  Uncharted and Heavy Rain were a better "new way to play" than move ever will be.  It's about what's happening on the screen not what's in your hands.  They just need to make input easier that's all which can be improved in the ways I mentioned in the OP.

probably that makes it much easier for developers to move ios games to ps4 (eg. Angry birds)

exactly.  They should focus on what fans have been demanding (the stuff I mentioned I've seen many people want) rather than trying to put some touchpad on there with no real use.  If they want to show a USP just show their exclusive games.  The PS3 has outsold 360 almost every year on market despite being more expensive and it wasn't because move caught on more than Kinect.  It was because they had more high quality exclusives and free online.  Therefore it only makes sense to concentrate on those.

It probably costs 5$ to make at most.