> Show me a better multi-purpose input device that I can use to rotate objects on a screen. Or zoom into a specific object without affecting other objects on a screen.

I agree with you in general, but a trackpad is in fact really, truly horrible for these tasks. As humans we are designed to rotate objects precisely, and that design does not involve using two fingers to slide about arbitrary locations on a flat plane. It involves grasping and rotating with the hand. For rotating and/or zooming, a large knob attached to a high-resolution encoder would be a million times better.