Re: Hold on, if I read this right
The second-system effect is the tendency of small, elegant, and successful systems, to be succeeded by over-engineered, bloated systems.
However, as we are talking about Windows 8.1 applications, they don't meet ANY of those three criteria, as they are most likely NOT small, NOT elegant, and NOT successful. As such, using them as a prototype and developing version 2 sounds like a very viable plan.