For me, I prefer the menu for its compactness, and not cluttering the desktop. I hate “busy”.
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But that is the very reason I like the tiles. I have a 34 inch or so high rez monitor and I could easily put 100 tiles on the Start Menuif I wanted to. With the old drop down system that people seem to miss I would be limited to about 20 at the most.
In the upper left hand corner of my Start Menu I have the tile that brings up my desktop. On my desktop I have the icon that takes me to my Start Menu. So I can easily toggle between the two screens.
I use the Start Menu to launch Apps.
I use the Desktop to stick shortcuts to commonly accessed folders and a couple of commonly used apps.
For me this is a perfect setup that I don’t believe can be improved upon. I have zero need for a drop down Start Menu.
I have over 200 shortcuts on my monitors and use Stardock’s Fences proggy to help me categorize them. Love the proggy. Always come up organized after a boot or crash.