I cut my teeth on DOS 4. I’ve worked in every major Windows revision since 95 and more recently with Linux. I don’t disagree with you. The large majority of changes between Win8 and 8.1 is aesthetic. They were responding to the Metro debacle.
Now you have 8.1 update 1 (8.1.1) that’s required by Microsoft or they won’t support you. It’s a debacle, I don’t disagree, but Windows 8, in general, is not a terrible OS. There’s a slight learning curve, but it’s much faster than 7 in most areas of performance.
I never had 7 and things improved when I installed the Windows Shell on 8. Downloading and saving files is a bear and “script quit” is a daily problem. I will try 8.1 but my past experience leaves me very cautious.