Windows 8.1 has already solved most of the issues of Windows 8 - I'm reminded of Windows 3.0 vs 3.1 (and yes, that makes me OLD!).

You don't even need to spend $5 on Start8 - StartMenu8 is just as good and it's free.

I have Win 8.1 on my ThinkPad T440s and on my ThinkPad Tablet 2. I go to the Metro interface perhaps once a week for the Kindle app, and that's about it. (I really don't even need to do that if I don't want to; I could download Kindle for PC and run that from the desktop.)

Everything else runs swimmingly from the desktop, which looks just like my old Windows 7 desktop, except it's a little faster and a bit more stable.