Re: For all the metro haters
The start menu is significantly different, and plenty of people prefer the old one to the new version. But although a side-benefit was them making a consistent interface, imo it still works as a UI in its own right. I like the new Windows start menu ("screen") on a non-touch laptop - now I have the fullscreen being made use of, rather than a postage stamp sized window in the corner. Remember, way back in Windows 95, the point of the start menu was to cascade, so that submenus opened, and took up the full screen. Without XP or Vista (I forget which), they made it remain small, stuck in the corner, with the submenus opening in the same space.
In fact, I'd probably like this less on a Windows Phone, because you don't have the screen size to make use of it, so can only fit a few tiles. There it's better to have something that allows hierarchical menus, like you can with the Android homescreen (well, one level of hierarchy anyway) (and was the case with Symbian and feature phones years before that). But then again, I haven't tried it, and it's probably what I'm used to :)
"It also might seriously piss off long term Android users who, if they wanted WinPho would have bought WinPho."
Indeed, I think this is the key - people get annoyed with change. If Windows 8 had thrust the OS X UI onto people, it wouldn't be (as much as many journalists seem to think) "Oh yes, this is much better", but even more of an uproar - either because they don't like change, or if they wanted OS X they would have bought it. Indeed OS X launches things by clicking on icons, that doesn't mean it was made for touchscreens, but would still annoy those who wondered where their start menu had gone.
I think MS should have done more to keep in options to keep things somewhat the way they were (similar to how XP could switch back to 2000s menu), but whether a particular UI is good or bad, or works better on a phone or laptop or not, comes down to preference. Anyhow, any half-decent OS lets you change things, and it's a 5 minute job to put the start menu back anyway for those who prefer.