I think the biggest change that killed 8 was the lack of the start menu. Having to go to the start screen - pulling you away from your entire desktop just to la

I think the biggest change that killed 8 was the lack of the start menu. Having to go to the start screen - pulling you away from your entire desktop just to launch an app - was awful. I know Win 8.1 got it back, but for the time between 8 and 8.1 Classic Shell was almost necessary to use Windows 8. All that for no discernible benefit over using 7.