>>The enterprise and SMB have refused to adopt it en mass, and the retail public has been fleeing it as fast as they can, holding on to their XP and W7 systems
A marketplace manifestation I saw recently that supports your assertion: Costco was selling a tower PC only, no monitor. Maybe no mouse and keyboard, I didn’t look closely. Clearly a setup for the SMB buyer looking to upgrade.
The machine came preloaded with Win7 Pro, with a Win8 “upgrade” disc.
Win7 remains a fine OS.
Yeah, it’s a pretty big deal when an outfit like Costco caves, since they’ve always pretty much been like Best Buy, i.e., they only offer the latest version of trash from Microsoft and no other alternative.