I don't have much experience with Windows 8 other than setting up a laptop for my wife's niece in Brasil. I found it quite different at the beginning, but after a few days of playing with it, I think that it still did the same things basically the same way. Instead of clicking start on the desktop and having a list of programs come up, the Metro screen comes up and give access to the same programs. Different yes, harder, not really. I also counter clicks to do a few common tasks and found them to be the same as in prior versions of Windows. Again, I am not claiming to have extensive experience, but I did play around with it for several hours over the course of a few days as I had to set it up Portuguese and download several programs in Portuguese, language pack for Office 2013 and get her set up with the Brazilian version of Google search, etc.
The laptop we bought her was a touch screen and she loves it. Never saw Windows 8 before and she was using it like a pro in no time. I can see how the swipe in left, right, etc are more natural to use on a touch screen.
You pretty much nailed it in one. Like I said before, there are problems with Windows 8, but for the most part it performs exactly like Windows 7 did. The difference is that it looks different. And if there's one thing that's definitely true of everyone from tech geeks to grandmas alike, is that they're a conservative bunch of people who don't like change.
There's a lot of knee jerking and very little thinking going on with stuff these days. It's like having an iOS like springboard in Mountain Lion. You hear people all the time going on and on about how IT IS A TOUCHSCREEN INTERFACE CUZ IT'S ON IPAD AND DOESN'T WORK WITH A DESKTOP HURRRR (imagine someone saying this with a flappy head, like the Canadians on South Park). Err..why? If you ask me, it's a great way to organize a whole bunch of apps. You've still got the dock to put all your most used programs on. If you've got a bunch of apps you like having around, but only use occasionally, just keep them in there. Even group a bunch of like ones together in a folder. Just because it first appeared on a touchscreen device doesn't mean it automatically sucks with a mouse. It's all clicking icons in the end.
Windows 8 is the exact same thing. The Start menu was a way to organize a bunch of applications, do searches, and have handy links to your PC settings. The new Start screen does the same thing, but bigger. Functionally, it's exactly the same. I can understand people having issues with the aesthetics (everything's a big tile, and it covers the desktop entirely instead of one small corner), but it works the same in practice.
There are some issues, of course. Like Metro apps being a second class of programs that run alongside desktop apps (confusing), the UI being a little too minimalist for it's own good at times, and search not having an "all" category, but it's not an unusable mess. At all.
It does needs tweaking, but that should come as no surprise to anyone. It always takes MS at least two tries to get something right.
