I must admit I'm not scared about touching my screen, although I obviously don't do it often. However while reading through this thread, I've touched it a few times
Firstly, from my Dad's experience with other LCD's (not mine, but his) a few firm taps will often coax a dead pixel into working again.
LCD's, well at least my 6+ year old one, (I think it's an original rev. 15" Apple LCD Displays, bought it with my Cube) are incredibly resilient. Once, a few years ago, I was moving the screen while it was on, moving a small way to a better position on my desk, when to my horror, it toppled forward. I failed to catch it, and to my absolute hysterical fear-of-damage-to-my-precious-cube, it flopped hard, as I'm sure you can imagine (It weighs quite a lot) on top of one of the cube's spherical speakers. They are about 100mm in diameter. My computer promptly shut down, I don't know why, I expect a wire was touching the power button (The touch sensitive ones that are only affected by fingers and metal). After sorting it all out, I was horrified to discover the slightest warping of the panel down the bottom of the screen. However, there were no dead pixels, and the warping was really only noticable on a single colour background.
Now, a few years later, that warping has completely dissappeared. The panel has sagged a little, giving my screen the same sort of warping marks in horizontal waves, but they can only be seen when looking at the screen at a very large viewing angle.
I wouldn't be surprised if modern screens are nowhere near as tough as mine is, but it must be good to know that a screen can take a huge knock, and will heal itself over time, as the liquid crystal very slowly flows back to where it is supposed to be.
I sometimes use the middle length of my index finger to remove dust from my screen, to no noticable ill effect, even after six years.
