IS isn't being phased out, Premium is being phased in to include other functions and costs more than IS, now if you don't need those functions, no problem IS will continue.
Who sits staring at the Home page of the UI, it has zero information and most people once they open the first time are likely to open the Security tile. The Security, Summary displaying something like the information on all shields like the avast 7 Real-Time Shield protection screen but not displayed as the large segmented cheese.
That really is the most useful of the other sections, once selected if you close the UI and open it again it will be at the Security > Summary screen, so you only need to see that metro clone screen once when you first restart your system.