I enjoy having all my options on the touch screen and not have to pause the game to see maps, items, etc...

If I wanted to game with a standard dual analogue controller I'd have stuck with my PS1.

So, is this akin to the Wii should of not released with motion control?  If I understand correctly, what the original poster is advocating is Nintendo release a new console that offers only marginally superior specs over this generation and no features that would differentiate it in any way.

What I am stumped about is how exactly this approach is supposed to get people to care, outside of maybe hardcore Nintendo partisans who happen to end up being a fan of Nintendo's IP.

Yes.

I own a Wii U and for single player games it really isn't worth it. Oddly enough my best experience with asymmetrical gameplay was on LittleBigPlanet cross-controller DLC. Going back and forth between the screens with two worlds overlapping was great. In my favorite part one character plays on Vita inside the enemy ship while the other players are having a space fight with that ship on the main tv. That multiplayer experience is wonderful and Nintendo needs to capitalize on it.

For SP games it's useful but not $100 useful. However new rumors are that the PS4 controller does indeed have a touch screen and not a touchpad. If true Nintendo should stick with the gamepad to see how things go.

The controller is great, but it would be smarter to sell a version without it until sales improve.

The Gamepad has become my preferred method of controlling a game. I don't care that I already bought Deus Ex and played through it enough times to get tired of it and see literally everything, I am buying it again because of the Gamepad and what it brings to the table. I have played my 360 exactly once in the last 2 months and that was to play Halo with a friend for an hour. I don't even have an HDMI cable in it at the moment.

Nintendo has almost always innovated with their controller. The one time that could be argued they didn't was with the Gamecube, but even then they brought in the Wavebird for the first wireless controller. NES -> SNES --> N64 =/= GCN ---> Wii --> Wii U

Selling it without the Gamepad would be idiotic as no developer would care to utilize the main feature of the system. Sony is practically begging developers to try the remote play stuff for their games because they know that if they don't, the devs won't even bother. It's why developers outside of Nintendo didn't try with Wii Motion+, it was an optional peripheral that the majority didn't own.