It was a stupid idea of Microsoft to have left out the start menu as that is really the only failing of win8 I can find and what most user's hate as everything else just works better imo, thanks to Stardocks Start8 application I have everything working the same as I did with win7 only it's faster with a few extra nice features
Totally agree on the interface, despite many reviews to the contrary they never too a blind bit of notice of the users/reviews and ploughed on regardless with the metro interface and no means to permanently switch to a classic style. Until 3rd party software became available to bypass that interface completely.
For me it is this type of intransigence by MS that has shot themselves in the foot and even though there are now 3rd party options to get a classic style interface, many including myself are being just as intransigent in avoiding win8.
It might be cutting off my nose to spite my face, but isn't that exactly what MS have done, here it is one size fits all, take it or leave it; in what has been designed as a touch screen OS.