You should try it, if you live near a Microsoft Store, before you call it crappy. I've tried it and I found it to be an excellent machine. It is very smooth and responsive. The resolution is out of this world compared to the Air. Just saying...
I have a work supplied SP3, along with a personal MBA 11" (current gen) and some other Macs/Windows machines.
The SP3 is great for writing (OneNote 2013, not the Metro OneNote) and makes Windows 8.1 kind of nice. However it has ****** wireless, a ****** keyboard that costs another $130 and small annoying glitches (like the screen keyboard not always coming up when entering text) that make it an annoying device to use for a full day's work. The keyboard is cheap and flimsy, typing on it gives a weird hollow feeling that just doesn't... mesh (poor word choice) with typing all day.
Then there is the need for a cloud account to use preloaded software (OneNote) and the inability to store files locally for the preloaded Metro version of OneNote. Microsoft's attempt to force you into a cloud account for the Windows login itself (you can skip, in small print).
If this was the SP1, I'd consider it just standard new device glitches. But this is the third round of their tablet. It just lacks the fit and finish of an iPad/MBA/ThinkPad (minus the new Lenovo crap).
If I went with a Windows mobile device again, I'd buy an older IBM/Lenovo ThinkPad but I think I'll stick to VMs for Windows instead of buying another device to run it.