Did you install Classic Shell?
Once I did that, I haven’t had too many annoyances with the 8.1 interface. The performance is much better with 8.1 though, I haven’t had any problems in that department at all.
No. I’ve seen a few people say it solves the problems. I keep a ‘clean’ computer and, frankly, 8.1 is so bad for desktops I expected Windows to put out a patch to fix things like that imbecilic charm bar.