Can’t miss what you don’t know. I refuse to purchase at a laptop without a touch screen.
When you don’t have a mouse it is great for quick interactions that cover a distance across the screen - interact with a button here, another over there, select a field far off from where my cursor is, screen skip, quick markup, etc. It’s also far friendlier to use when commuting or flying where there are bumps and little elbow room. It isn’t a 100% replacement for a touch pad but having it there to augment at times is such a boon.
I’ve experienced this on pixel devices. I’ve found the solution is to force stop the pixel launcher when it happens.