Why would Microsoft remove the beautiful Aero Glass effect and replace it with flat colors and cheesy translucency?

XP always ran appreciably better on budget machines if the Classic theme was selected.

Vista was slow as molasses, and the slick look didn't help one bit. It didn't help that the Vista era saw a major shift to home users buying laptops with less than good integrated video either. A visit to 'Performance....' in Control Panel always showed that performance could be increased by knocking out some or all of the slick features. 

Windows 7 was given the Aero theme because speed was clawed back from other areas, but still the 'Perfromance.....' utility in Control panel advised removal of some or all of Aero if the user wanted to get more overall performance.

So, now Microsoft have an OS which looks the same across the various platforms and will perform well across the various platforms, assuming that the screen resolution is greater than 1024 x 600. It makes economic sense for Microsoft and the end user, neither having to pay top dollar to get all that the OS promises.

The Windows 8 interface is flat, but I would not call it 'distracting' exactly, especially in Windows 8 app mode where there are NO borders..

Let's consider that ideas for a moment, we'll tell the users to constantly switch back and forth from the Desktop screen to the Start screen. Hmmm...That sounds plausible doesn't it. Let's see it's not here so let's go look over there. Well, it's not there either, now let's use on of the "hidden" features (i.e. non-visible) to place it on one of those two screens and try to remember where it is. This instead of using a simple desktop and/or the Task Bar to store all the shortcuts I use every day. What a grand idea that is.

(Just so you know, the sarcasm is directed at Microsoft, not you.)

   Even though I enjoy this little tet-a-tet, the main point is "Choice" which is something everyone is asking for. Will there be a downside to that choice, presumably, Yes. But allow the users to make that choice themselves. It simply appears to many of us that Microsoft is trying a one-size-fits-all approach with their new offerrings which many disagree with. And as you can probably surmise at this point, I happen to agree that this approach seems somewhat shortsighted.

"The average home user is looking for cheap which is inevitably low powered and under specified."

   Just out of curiosity, what do you think is the difference in todays "low powered and under specified" desktop systems as compared to the same type of desktop systems in 2009 when Vista Aero was released? I would argue that todays systems have significantly more processing power than the same class of systems from 2009. Even the small desktop systems ($300-$400 as in my original post) today are capable of handling a rich UI, which users seem to still want.

It's simple, and it apears you missed the point. How many icons (read shortcuts) can I have on the Windows 7 desktop and/or pinned? How many fit on the new Metro Start screen? The example is very realistic if you consider how Windows 7 is actually used in the field.

 

Sorry to disagree again.

so what is keeping them from using the desktop shortcuts on w8? Nothing. That's a non issue.

Business users should be using the desktop, not the Modern UI, and in any case, the Modern UI tiles can be dragged around into any order the user wishes.

The average home user is looking for cheap which is inevitably low powered and under specified.

The choice:

1. Fancy Aero graphics which appeared quite late in the game with Vista, and which many bemoaned because it cut into valuable screen real estate..
2. Video and general screen performance..

Since the intro of Windows 7, Microsoft have been moving to better performance on smaller. less well specified machines: A welcome change, I would have thought..