the movements required for your fingers are moreorless that of your feet in real life skating.
Have you played Sessions? This is how it works in that game too, literally the only difference is your fingers are on analog sticks rather than on the sheet of glass that is your phone screen. The developers ended up including an alternative control scheme more similar to EA’s Skate series because of how intense the learning curve on their control scheme is.
but taking away the actual placement of fingers on the board onscreen would take away an awful lot of the reason people enjoy it
I guess this is where we just have to agree to disagree. I can’t think of any reason I’d find blocking part of my field of view as an enhancement to the experience.