As for the new application for Windows 8, TWC should do better than that. I think they took the minimalist approach of Windows 8 and went way overboard.
As for your concerns with Windows 8, here is my short review.
Windows 8 has been absolutely fantastic in my uses. I thought for a while that I would miss the old start menu, but I do not. I installed an application (Start 8) a while back to get the Win7-like start menu back and uninstalled it within 15 minutes. One thing I do not use often are the applications from the Windows store. On a desktop without touch input, they're useless to me. Even though some of the changes are somewhat radical, it's not hard at all to use Windows 8 with a mouse and keyboard. In my uses, it may actually be much quicker to find what I need. The performance boosts are also worth it. It's fairly noticeable on my 3yo computer now. Best suggestion is to go test drive it for yourself, but I'd advise giving it a few hours before you make a decision on the OS. The learning curve is steep, but you'll be on your way within about 3-4 hours. Seriously, it's not hard at all if you're not lazy. I can honestly say, after using Win8, I dread using a computer with Win7. Lets not forget, Microsoft is rumored to be making updates to this OS in mid-2013 to improve the UI and interface features. Perhaps they will learn from the radical changes in Win8 and make it a bit more user friendly from the first use.
Hope this helps.
