One underappreciated thing about Windows 8 is that even if the start menu was ugly and blocked the entire screen, you could press the windows key, immediately start typing, and then press enter to somewhat deterministically pick the top app. This made it feel quite fast.
Now on more recent windows editions, I find that I often need to wait for the menu to visually appear before it will accept any keyboard input, and the ranking shifts over time and includes web stuff, making this workflow basically useless.
I also really miss the aero look of windows 7... Eye-candy, sure, but I thought it was pretty, clean and modern looking. I am sad they moved away from it.
Now on more recent windows editions, I find that I often need to wait for the menu to visually appear before it will accept any keyboard input, and the ranking shifts over time and includes web stuff, making this workflow basically useless.
I also really miss the aero look of windows 7... Eye-candy, sure, but I thought it was pretty, clean and modern looking. I am sad they moved away from it.