It's the most divisive part of a Thinkpad. 45% of people will say it's the greatest thing ever and every keyboard should have one. 45% of people will say it's useless and they should remove it. 10% of people don't care.
Then smart sales and marketing should keep that feature. Lenovo can't sell to 100% of the market anyway. 45% who think it's the greatest thing ever is great marketing.