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I used Start8 which adds a fully-functional Win7 start menu to Win8. Absolute necessity, and makes it bearable, but I really don't think that's the point. A tiny proportion of people will bother (or be able) to install those fixes, and the rest of the world (including pretty much ALL businesses) have to do without, using the default install. If that's no good, then the OS is going to be horrible for them all to use, and it should be better than it is. Metro is good, but the fact remains that the Win8 UI is inadequate. Without touch, it's hopeless, and whilst Start8 goes a long way to fixing that, it's still wrong. I use a Windows Phone, which is awesome (apart from the lack of apps). Metro works well on WP8, on a touch device, although it's still not perfect. The individual elements of the UI are great, but the selection and application of them is not. Metro is a great touch interface - but the choice of a touch interface for both touch and non-touch computers, with no adequate consideration given to keyboard/mouse users, is a fatal flaw.

You're not far wrong. The main problem is "design by committee". And I don't mean ten Microsoft guys in a room, I mean the ideas and designs being passed back-and-forth between loads of different hardware and software companies. It's just a mish-mash of needs and wants, and the quality and purpose gets lost in the jargon and marketing-speak like "Feature PCs" (things like powerful tablets). It's all driven by statistics. It's fine getting loads of numbers, but you need to know which numbers to pay attention to. They probably saw that 80% of people now use touchscreen phones with no physical keyboards, so that MUST obviously mean that 80% of people would buy a touchscreen-only PC, even when that isn't what works best for desktop apps or productive working. I would ALWAYS choose to use my computer over a tablet/phone to type something up, use a complex program or to be able to multi-task, that was the main benefit of having a PC, but they forgot that over the buzz of shiny simple touch-friendly apps. And as for the fact that half of it's missing and there's a very inconsistent half-metro half-desktop UI, well that's just down to the project planning and design forcing a release as soon as apps work and it's secure enough, rather than working hard to make a properly good interface. I am most definitely NOT a fanboy, but I really can't imagine Apple releasing anything as bad as Win8. Except maps.