I'm baffled about how some of my workmates talk about windows 8. Most of them haven't even tried it and dismiss it just because it's slightly different. Most people bring up that metro is stupid and that they took out the startmenu, which I find ridiculous. The metro UI works exactly like the startmenu worked, when I want to launch an application I press the windows key (or klick in the lower left corner, where the start menu was anyway) and type the name of the application in to launch it. There's your start menu right there. I also use it for all my shortcuts, my desktop has never been that clean before.
I'm one of those "most people".
Here's why I like the Desktop and Smart Menu paradigm better:
1) I like being able to see my running applications at the same time that I launch new applications. I don't want my application launcher to be full screen. The degree to which this inconveniences my workflow varies; in some cases, I'm only using one application, and it's no big deal. But in other cases, it's more of a big deal. No tablet UI is able to do this, in part reflecting the fact that tablets are not interested in enabling multitasking in any real way, because they are consumption devices.
So, and this is probably the first major criticism of Metro/W8; it's designed primarily for tablets. Not just because of gestures--which can mostly be compensated for by learning keyboard shortcuts--but also because Metro, both the Start Screen and the applications, are designed for singular, full-screen focus rather than multitasking. Side-snapping mitigates this a little bit versus some tablet UIs, but it is not a substitute for the full desktop multitasking experience which has existed since Windows 95. The desktop of course still exists here, but the Start Screen interrupts that flow.
2) Visually, I don't like the circuit switching involved in switching rapidly from desktop to Metro to desktop to Metro and back. So if I'm using primarily desktop applications, I want to stay as fully in the desktop environment as I can. Do you have a Mac? Try to use a Mac at the same time as you're using a PC, switching back and forth between the two. Even if you're good at both OSes and know your work-flow on both, it's still visually arresting and requires a more active focus to deal with than simply using one at once.
This is one of the criticisms people talk about when they say the OS is "disjointed". They deprecate alt-tab but the Metro task switcher doesn't play with desktop applications. Metro apps are not supposed to be closed when you're not using them, but Desktop applications are. Metro apps are searched and shared through charms; Desktop applications are searched with an app-specific context and sharing is generally not required because desktop applications don't have the silo model of dealing with file or content inputs... so you can use system-wide copy-pasting or drag-and-dropping.
3) You identify the start screen as having the benefit of keeping your desktop clean. This is true. However this is also true with the W7-style start menu, based on how you've identified how you use it. In W7, you can press Win Key, and then type the name of the application you wish to launch. So if your desktop wasn't clean before, that suggests you're ascribing a benefit to the Start Screen that already existed in the Start Menu.
I don't think Metro is an unbridled disaster, and with Start8 being an effectively 100% acceptable restoration of the Windows 7 Start Menu it's not a reason to ignore W8 even if it was, but the criticisms about and against it remain as true now as they were in the CP.
