I love how everyone is jumping on Minstadave for expecting ease of use and intuitive functionality. I particularly love how people are having a go at him for having to google how to shut down windows 8. I had to do this also. Why? Because it was quicker to do that than to hunt around for an unbelievably obscure shut down button.
As it happens, I quite like Windows 8 now, as I bought Retro UI and that has the ability to completely remove the Metro UI from it. Now I only get the good things; Faster search (Bar the 3 categories which is insanely stupid) Faster boot, better desktop interface in it's file moving and whatnot, better task manager etc.
Essentially Minstadave, I think you will love Windows 8 if you get Retro UI, as will many people whose chief complaint is the Metro UI.
The funny thing is though, I would love Metro UI if it didn't force you into a really ****** fullscreen mode. I want my Mail app to be fullscreen on my right monitor while I can do something else on the left. I want to be able to watch a movie on the right monitor while I browse on the left. As far as I could tell Metro does not allow you to do this. It's either 1 screen at a time or nothing, a holdover I believe from it's tablet roots.
In this regard Minstadave is completely correct. The fact that you have found ways around things does not mean you should have had to. This OS should have been designed with PC's in mind first. Essentially I get the feeling Microsoft just wanted to justify the costs of developing Metro by forcing their PC users to use it also. The traditional start button really is faster, although it wouldn't be if Metro's search function wasn't split in three.
