It's about what you want/need.
I want buttons and power.
You want touchscreen and power.
No, I want more power.
Standard WM (non-touchscreen) phones are usually less powerful (have a lower-clocked processor, less RAM and longer delay between switching to programs). From what I've seen with the HTC S740, a non-touchscreen WM phone, when you went to open an app, it took much longer than it should have (about 8-10 seconds).
So yeah, they're not the same thing. Touchscreen WM phones are more powerful than non-touchscreen phones. Plus, there's far less applications for non-touchscreen WM phones, since they run a different version of WM that the touchscreen phones do.
I know about Windows Mobile, and I know what I'm talking about.