I disagree. I didn’t go to 8 right away, but just moved to 8.1 from 7 and I’m loving it. I know there are plenty of problems with the deploy of 8.1 that the common non-techy will not enjoy. Once you get there and configure it to your liking this system is just as good as Win 7 and blows XP out of the water.
I run a home built machine (as I have for 15+ years) with a Intel i7, 16gb, 240gb SSD, two 512gb RAID 0, discrete graphics and audio. The only incompatibility I had was with an Intel driver.
I like it too.
I agree with you. I’ve had a w8.1 system for a month. I replaced a 10 year old xp laptop. It takes a little while to learn all the features of the Metro GUI. I.E. you can put shortcuts to desktop programs on the start page.
The only confusing thing for me was there are three ways to play audio. Media player on the start page and the desktop and a Music app on the start page. The Music app is set to be the default player and is tied in to X Box. I was ripping some Christmas CDs and had no idea about the Music App.