I also just use the Apple TV remote for my tv and it works fine to turn the tv on and off and to adjust the volume, so I never have to touch the TV remote. However, even if I did want to do something like change inputs often I could exclusively use the TV remote and it also works just fine to control the Apple TV.

Mileage may vary. My tv is older but does seem to have good CEC support and the newest Apple TV supports CEC.

Some devices do not support CEC and it seems others only partially support CEC so when that happens one thing, like the power on and off command, doesn’t work and you end up having to use a second remote anyway, which defeats the whole point.

On top of that, people who used the old Apple TV remote with the touchpad might not even realize that there's a new one that fixes all the bad design issues of the old one.