I think the "you can run iOS apps on your Mac now" announcement basically guaranteed touchscreen Macs. It might be possible to use many iOS apps with a trackpad, but it's not going to be a pleasant experience.

Put together a touch-friendly new OS UI with the ability to run a zillion apps designed-for-touch in a context where all your competition has touch-enabled devices and it's hard to believe they'd hold out any longer.

If they were going to do this, they would have done it when they needed a big new feature and instead they put out the touch bar. Apple's answer to people who want something like this is the iPad Pro with the adaptive cursor and the keyboard case with the touch pad.

I could be wrong, it's just my instinct.

From the article: "Beginning in macOS 11, the track of a slider with tick marks aligns with the center of the thumb."