I I was surprised to find that our school did a poll and found that 96% of students preferred the Apple products and OS Yosemite over Windows 8. I hate to admit it, being a once Microsoft junkie, but Mac's are way more productive and less expensive overall.
It's great that you folks who have trouble coping have found the Mac, the computer for the rest of you, as long as you like the limited selection of models they're selling.... Just like Henry Ford sold Model T's, you can have any car color you want as long as it's black. I have Windows 8.1 on a 2009 Dell laptop, my Asus VivoTab Note 8, a Surface RT tablet (that's quite slow compared to the Asus), and Win8.1 gave me no problems on my Surface Pro 2 but I've switched to Windows 10 Tech Preview on that. I too have been around since DOS (1982) and before that IBM mainframes and PDP 11's running the original Unix. So I guess I must have just learned more about the care and feeding of computers as I haven't had any insurmountable problems with Windows 8.x (Win10 Tech Preview Build 9879, a different story!). I used the Start Screen when it was convenient and just used the Desktop as if I were in Windows 7 when I wanted to use my many old Windows programs. In WIndows 8.x, even with a keyboard and mouse, I liked most of the touch-oriented features including the Charms menu with Search and Share and the Network Flyout. I'm disappointed in the way they've revamped many of these features in Windows 10. The All apps section of the new Start button/Start Screen is better organized in Windows 10 but I also miss horizontal scrolling through tiles as opposed to the vertical scrolling now implemented in Windows 10.
You complainers probably don't have an Xbox One but of all Windows interfaces, I'm most impressed with the Xbox One interface after being a Sony PS2 and PS3 user for many, many years. No problem with the PS3 as a piece of hardware or with its beautiful graphics but the user interface, web browser, etc. was terrible. So I find the Windows 8-like interface of the Xbox One tremendous, comparatively, and I'm hoping in Windows 10 that the Xbox user interface is improved with more apps coming to the Xbox so it's really just another computer in my house and becomes more interactive with the rest of my devices. Maybe the Xbox designers at Microsoft should take over the development of Windows 10!
BTW, I'm also a fitness buff, have a Microsoft Band watch/fitness tracker that I also like very much and it works great with my 6-inch Nokia 1520 Win8.1 phone. Even in phones, Apple illustrates my point. For years, they knew the size phone that you needed, ~4-inch screen. "Trust us. Nobody really needs a bigger phone." Interesting that they finally came around.