Me too, I think the x86 Surface is going to be to me what the dust covered iPad on my shelf never was. However, I'm feeling that Windows 8 on the desktop is going to be a disaster. There's just no benefit to a tablet/phone UI on my desktop.
And that is why noone will use Metro on their desktop for real work.
For a workstation the Windows 7 to Windows 8 transition will be much smaller than the Vista to Windows 7 transition, so I have a hard time understanding how it could be a disaster...
I was of the same opinion before I tried 8, but after a week of use it's actually far easier and better from my perspective. I do not miss the start menu, the start screen is better in almost all ways. it does take some getting used to though. (Oops, I suppose this will be rated as fake by Toshio, downthread, who thinks he can detect fake sentiment in online postings. Guess I'd better report to the corporate overlords for my chip implant.)
I honestly don't find it that unintuitive. I may have a leg up since my primary pointing device is a trackpoint, which makes hitting the screen corners a really easy move. When you hit the corner, there are visual hints that pop up to guide you to the start screen, sidebar thing, or open applications list. there are definitely some things I would have suggested that they do to help people into the new interface, like a guided help or pop-up tips, but a quick google and 30 seconds of reading were really all that was required to get into it.
The edge swipe behavior is new, and a pretty big change, but it's consistent. I didn't find that it took that long to get used to. It took longer to get used to the missing Start button. There's a lot of muscle memory there, so I've opened IE (first icon on my taskbar) on accident a number of times.
The IE logo does look at first glance to be the start orb thing. I hit that all the time trying to get to the start corner when my second monitor is to the left of my main monitor.
All the enhancements for multi-monitor support, yet they still didn't anticipate having a monitor to the left of your main...
With a few weeks of using W8 as my primary OS, I constantly forget I'm not using 7. The only time I see anything that reminds me I'm on 8 is if I move my mouse over the Charms or when I hit the Windows key to launch a new program.
