W5XX professional users - does win 8 have any advantages over 7?

Question

I expect that many or most W5XX owners use their workstation lappy primarily or entirely for work. I do.  I have 2x 30" monitors, 32 GB ram ( and use it) , and hundreds if not thousands of apps installed, and have probably 20+ open at any given time.
Trying to move to a new HD, I accidentally installed windows 8, and, before going back to 7, decided to try it for a few days. 
Like many, i hated it with venom for its unintuativeness (had to google how to close an app, and how to launch an app).   I have used Windows since version 3.1, Unix since SCO, Mac since the Mac 128, and I could not figure how to close an app or launch an app with keyboard and mouse.  I was stunned.  
So i did a lot of googling and viewed many tutorials, and got to the point where I could install and run most of the apps I would need. 
I quickly realised that ALL metro apps are completely useless for me.  Why would I want skype or IE to take up an entire 30" monitor, not allowing me to work on photoshop or in Eclipse IDE at the same time as chatting?  They are all glorified toy widgets.
I see the value of windows 8 and metro apps on phones and tablets where really simple full screen apps are at home, and most peole spend their time in twitter, FB and looking at their cat pictures, but I cant see any value on the desktop - it just slows me down.  BTW if I want to look at my cat pictures, I fire up lightroom.
So here is the question: metro aside, on the dekstop, are there any features in windows 8 which are an imporevemnt on windows 7?  I.e. is there a reason to stick with 8 which I havent found yet?  Some feature which helps productivity on the desktop, or some W5XX driver which works better on  8?  
E.g. I have heard that 8 boots slightly faster than 7. Is this the only adantage?
I rarely use winows search in 7, as I cant stop it from returning hundreds of hits from my hundreds of thousands of emails, instead of the file or contact I was actually looking for.  i assume windows 8 does nothing to help this.

Answer 1

Having used windows 8 for a week, in my oppinion, there are no advantages over windows 7 what so ever, and many disadvantages, including:
need to learn everything from scratch, you even have to google how to close a metro app or how to shutdown.
or you need to spend time turning windows 8 back into windows 7 using various tweaks and start button replacements.
No noticable speed difference in startup or operation (on this machine at least)
If you have a problem, finding help is very difficult - all the solutions posted are for windows 7.  E.g. Its not possible to change the keyboard mapping windows boots with - it always defaults to US keybaord, I want it to default to UK, but no chance to find a solution.
Metro apps suck in every way.  They are noddy, cut down, dummed down apps desiged for the limitations of small, touch screen devices, not desktops with keyboard and mouse. 
the windows 8 start screen is an abomoniation for two reasons:
a) its a huge disctraction or "cognitive burden" to switch from the apps you have open on the desktop, to a complete full screen colour explosion of flasing icons, find what you want, then jump back.  Its a productivity no-no.
b) I could never find anything using the start screen, I hated it.  e.g. if you want to find an app, you have to look all through every icon - there is no logic or order.  if its not on the first screen, you have to click the mouse on a little apps arrow, which list all apps in a horrible order.  E.g. each MS app is split, os Word is under W, access is under A. I want them all to be grouped together, but you cant.  WIth the old win 7 start menu, when you click on all programs, you get an order list of all the intalled apps which does not change, so is much quicker.
Windows 8 is obvisly designed and optimised for small touch screen devices.  Its a poor experience for desktop.
Lenovo tools have had most of their functionality removed, and put up as metro apps only. No desktop versions.  Much of the functions I actually used is gone, e.g. the abilty to set the battery into lifespan mode, to make it last a lot longer by not charging it to 100% etc.  Now you have to charge it to 100%, and it kills the battery life by comparison.  Windows 8 is deisgned to run off batteries, not mains.
I had to disable the location services service, as it stopps chrome from working (it cant save anything, eg. you cant book mark, you cant install extensions, you cant sync etc).  Once disabled, chrome works again .  it was holding open the file Chrome uses to save its data.  This wasted me half a day - so as self employed, windows 8 has cost me money to get working I would not have had to spend on windows 7.  This is partly due to lenovos shoddy testing - they have a lot of bugs in their SW, bios and drivers which should have been caught at test time, but more so on windows 8 than 7.
In short, I am dissapointed that there are no windows 8 features which are worth moving to windows 8 for, and I deeply regret my decision to try it.  If it hadnnt just taken me 3 days to install and configure all my apps, dev IDEs, VPNs, databases, VMs etc I woud switch back to 7. Those people who say they prefer windows 8, I dont understand why, but good luck to everyone.
I hope this helps other W5xx owners who are considering the same question.
P.s. I installed classic shell, and highly recommend it as a fully featured free windows 7 start menu for windows 8.1.  One person sais they had luck with installing the unsupported windows 7 lenvo apps on widnows 8, but I am rather scared to do this - I am not sure how they will conflict.
Windows 9 is just around the corner, and who knows if this will cripple business users further, or if all the time you spent learning how to use windows 8 will be thrown away if they go back.  One thing is for sure - windows 8 is designed for small touch screen devices, and home users who use social apps and news primarily.  Just look at what apps are availble in the store.