All joking aside, there is a place for Windows in the market, as many people do find it extremely hard to get to grips with Linux.
As evidenced by the number that have been bought with people's hard-earned cash.
Every OS that has ever existed has had its advantages and its disadvantages. Diversity is a good thing, and jokes are too, but the OS religious wars are just boring and repetitive.
Feel smug and superior about your choice if you like.
But, make up your own mind and get on with it, preferably quietly.
The thing about W8 is that (it seems), in their desperation to be part of the smartphone boom (and probably also because of economics), they decided (despite fierce criticism during its beta testing phase) to roll-out a one-size-fits-all, rather than the previous market-segmented and tailored versions. Except, it doesn't fit everyone, as they are now finding out to their cost (literally in very poor sales).
@ HP, there is some noise from M$ that they are now 'committed' to 'continuous' i.e. incremental development, in future, rather like all the others, in fact. c.f. iOS, Android, Linux, etc. incremental releases; and there is some history, as WHS and others have had 'feature packs'. But as to payment or otherwise, well I wonder how this fits with Azure and their pay-as-you-go cloud model ....