Re: As if this will make people happy!
>>1) It is non-hierarchical; i.e., everything in creation gets splattered all over the screen. When an application installs multiple shortcuts, it's nice to have them associated with that application, not put on the top level by default.
I addressed this in the post you replied to. I'm a power user and I typically use about twenty programs reasonably regularly. That's significantly higher than most people. That fits on even my laptop screen. On my Desktop machine, I can fit fifty. Hierarchical structure is an approach to dealing with too many things in too small a space. That's why the Start Menu has this approach - it places every single thing in the system into a small strip. Where you actually have space, then a buffet model of everything laid out to be selected, is more efficient. Provided there's not so many that you can't find what you want which brings us neatly onto:
>>"2) It is unsorted and unsortable. I find it logical to sort things in some kind of order, say alphabetically, automatically, without having to shuffle everything around by hand."
It isn't unsorted or unsortable. There is the structure of columns which places things in groups and installed programs do get placed in groups along a theme, normally. Some programs get dumped in the miscellaneous, but that brings us onto the "unsortable". You just drag them where you want. An incredibly simple action that has been ingrained into computer users on Windows, Macs, KDE/Gnome/Xfce for a long time. Click and drag. So yes, demonstrably sortable. Additionally, the Start Screen has a very useful division built into it. Things you frequently want and things you don't. Compare that to the kitchen sink approach of the Start Menu where it has to get super-hierarchical because everything in the entire system is crammed into that little strip on the left-hand side. The Start Screen divides according to commonly-used / rarely-used and that's much more time efficient.
Also, all of the above and your entire case, ignores that you don't need to sort or search. You just start typing. Want Control Panel? Type 'con' and hit return. Your objection becomes a non-issue.
Yes, you already posed some "inevitable counterpoints" in your own post, but you did so only so that you could frame them yourself and I would prefer to put them in my own words. They remain counterpoints. For example, you say you have "dozens of application". That's fine. You can fit dozens of applications in two and a half groups on the Start Screen (one block = two columns of five) which is viewable at a glance. And as I keep writing and people keep trying to find reasons to dismiss, just type. Even if you had to type six characters to narrow down a program (very, very rare), that's still faster than taking your hands away from the keyboard.
Also, some of your "inevitable" counter-points I wouldn't dream of making. E.g. restoring the Start Menu being possible. Maybe you missed my entire post on how Windows 8 is better than the Start Menu. I don't want it back and I'm certainly not going to advocate clinging to it like a baby to its dummy to other people, either.
market for the return of the old configuration.
>>"Apart from those points, you make repeated references to using keyboard shortcuts on a touch-screen interface. If you fail to see the irony here, you are beyond help."
I've never once made such a reference. The entire thrust of my argument is explicitly that Windows 8 is as good or better as Windows 7 on a non-touch screen interface. That it is better than Windows 7 on a touch screen interface is really beyond question imo, and I've never so much as touched on the subject here.