Sources told 9to5Mac that the reason behind this is that the front-facing flash requires the new display tech we’ve seen on the iPhone 6s, which brings us to 3D touch.
The flagship feature on the iPhone 6s and iPhone 6s Plus, which offers deeper interaction with various applications on the iPhone through hard taps and long taps, will not be present on the iPhone SE.
Not an iOS user: This phone looks interesting to me - how pervasive is 3d touch? Am I missing out on something by getting a phone missing this feature?
I am getting used to it as in I've learned now not to press my phone too hard anymore to accidentally trigger it. Most apps replace it by a long press leaving only the force press home screen menus as the thing you'll miss out on.
Not very. It's mostly a few shortcuts, the only genuine feature is that you can force-touch the keyboard to get a sort of trackpad surface (for more precise cursor movement in text)