The IE implementation of pointer events specifies several different values for touch-action: http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/windows/apps/hh767313.aspx.  The pointer-events draft specification currently includes only 'auto', 'none' and 'inherit'.

One important scenario where I believe additional control is essential is when there is a scrollable list which can also be pulled side to side to trigger some action.  Eg., imagine a google+ page where pulling horizontally switches the stream you're viewing, but pulling vertically scrolls it.  I believe the only way to implement this with pointer events is to use touch-action: none and process scrolling entirely in JavaScript.  This is unaccaptable because it then becomes very difficult to mimic the browser's native scrolling feel.  

With touch events (as implemented in iOS and chrome desktop at least) it's possible to implement this by listening for all events on the div, but ignoring the touchmove events corresponding to scrolling.  Once a sufficient horizontal movement is detected, then preventDefault can be called to stop scrolling and javascript used to implement the horizontal action.

I believe the IE implementation of pointer events can handle this scenario even better.  By using 'touch-action: pan-y', the element can be scrolled vertically without any involvement of javascript (and so in a completely hardware accelerated fashion).  However if the user moves horizontally instead, events can be generated which the application can respond to.