Having a read through this, felt I had to comment. Yes, we have had our issues with it. The main being it kept dropping network drives when a user logs in, the second not being able to get a start menu customization I was happy with.
We have now however started rolling it out to anyone who wants it. The staff that are using it so far adore it, they've found it easy to adapt to and find it is quicker itself and for them to use as the start menu is "so much easier to navigate". The two SIMS.net users we have on it, also believe SIMS actually runs much better/quicker on W8 than anything they've used before - they've certainly been a lot quieter than when they were on W7.
A number of students started showing interest on it after seeing it on some of the IT staffs laptop's - so we stuck it on a classrooms worth of PC's. Once we got around the issue with start menu not showing, they loved it.
I hated it when I first used it, but after actually using it I've grown to like it too. You might not think it is well suited to a keyboard and mouse, but why isn't it?
The start menu is quicker and easier to use on every level, touch pads with the two-finger scroll work brilliantly with it - just as any mouse with a scroll wheel does.
Everyone seems reluctant to use it and keen to hate it without even giving it a good try. Everyone I've seen try it, has quickly grown to like it.