agreed.
One thing consumers dont like, especially those who work and not play (so not kids who get excited with tablets but people who do work on their machines) is a constant changing UI and especially having to change their hardware or operating system. In the corporate world sysadmins are calling out for SP2 because they integrate hotfixes onto reinstalls and these reinstalls get cluttered fast. eg. My laptop now MSE just scanned it, 288k files scanned because its a SP1 image with all hotfixes integrated, that leaves tons of dormant files on the disk. SP2 would be far smaller and cleaner.
What microsoft are doing is essentially copying google and apple (n my opinion poor) business practices, both those companiues have a trend of rapid releases especially google, kiddies love this as they get over excited on new versions but for me its a nightmare, I want a stable platform that I can use for several years, I wait a year after a OS release (at minimal) before I use it usually and then I expect to use it for at least 4 years. If I then upgrade I then expect the upgraded version to keep the same fundamental UI design with only enhancements not a rehaul.
Now here is what I think is going on at microsoft now.
They are clearly panicing because they not a major player in the mobile market, they have also discovered how profiteable a online app store is for companies like google and apple. So I can understand why this is been released for touch devices.
However their mistake is in forcing this down user's throats on the desktop and radically forcing a touchscreen UI on the desktop, usually when they release a new version of windows they dont do it with such brunt force, but they acting so desperate they going all out to make windows 7 less and less attractive to keep like xbox music windows 8 only and no more service packs. But the message they sending out to me is this.
1 - any future software I buy of them will have a short life before its treated as obselete, it may get security updates but will lose 3rd party support quicker due to fast progression of replacement products and lose quality focus because of rapid replacement products.
2 - any future UI changes I have to learn again and even when learned are less efficient may only last 2-3 years before microsoft panic again making more radical changes, microsoft gained my lotalty because the UI was stable all the way from 95 up to windows vista (taskbar changed too much in win7 to be called stable), but now I know microsoft dont care about that they will sell their soul to get mobile market share, mark my words if windows 8 fails in the mobile market, metro will be considered obselete and trashed by microsoft and a win9 will be pushed out quickly to try again.
Before I wasnt even considering a new OS, now I am evaluating various distros and freebsd as future desktop OS's for my use. Until then I will use windows 7, windows 8 is just for me to toy with in a VM as thats what it is a toy.