Alberto Ricci Bitti has developed a cool touch controller called the Touch 8. I can see this programmable controller having the ability to replace lots of single purpose controls that are used to control equipment.

"Touch8 is a module that integrates a 3" LCD touch-screen and a RISC processor. The processor includes a powerful library to handle graphics and windows. The module also includes a DC power supply and RS485, CAN 2.0B and TTL-serial interfaces to connect to every kind of machinery. There are also I/O pins including SPI and I2C.
Touch8 uses free, open-source, ANSI compliant C compilers and IDE. The additional library for graphics windows comes ready-to-use, and many practical examples of programs ready are posted online. Few simple functions to learn, no frills, and reasonable default in all situations: it is our philosophy. So you can concentrate on your application and develop code quickly, without having to (re)write lots of code. "