A lot in this thread "sounds" so beside the point that it's simply unbelievable that it is musicians who are having a discussion here.
Anyone who wishes to develop a beautiful touch must first of all have a mental concept of what a beautiful tone is, otherwise there will be nothing to develop. There is little hope in this respect for people who are tonally deaf to lovely sound qualities.
Anyone who doubts that one single tone on the piano, even without musical context, can have different sound qualities depending on how it is produced should read the book by Neuhaus and follow the suggestions in his book to the letter. Working on the production of one single tone and all its nuances and possibilities is actually the first element he mentions in the chapter on technique. This is something to be taken very seriously. The focus there is not what you do with the playing mechanism as such, but rather the quality of sound you get as a result, which is not only a matter of articulation, but also of the feel of rhythm within that articulation, the timing, etc.
And of course: no separate tone, however beautiful or ugly, will have real meaning unless it is used within a certain context. The beginning of a certain piece (even one single note or combination of notes) should contain and predict the end of the piece and all the notes in between in a game of prediction - echo - prediction - echo, etc. This is part of what we call "intonatsia" here in Russia. Without this, the pianist will only reveal 50% of what the piece contains, even if everything else is "right". That's why it can happen that a really good teacher, listening to you with his/her eyes closed, will stop you immediately after the first tone. The rest doesn't make sense already, even without having heard it.