Perfect case example why the answer is "YES"...
Try installing Adobe Creative Suite.
Sure, you get AfterEffects, Photoshop, Flash, etc. etc. on your home screen. You also get every tiny utility that almost never gets launched on your home screen. Launchers that only go to some settings you might have to access some day, image viewers that might be the only program you have that correctly reads a certain format, dozens of things that are there for you if and when you need them.
The start menu was the perfect way to store stuff like that. The application developer defines a list of launchers that they think the customer may one day need. If the app developer makes too many, that's fine. They're all stored in that developer's folder. You never have to remember what they were called, only that you thought you remembered there being this utility, and either the name of the software or the name of the company that made the software, and you can find it. The rest of the time it's out of your way.
The home screen shows all icons flat with no folding, and the only other way to access launchers is to browse the legacy "start menu" folder as a filesystem (very annoying and inefficient) or troll around in the Program Files area looking for the .exe (Dangerous vs. accidental renames or drag-n-drops especially for inexperienced users.)
The Start Menu was an organized, standardized, well-supported, well-understood (both among developers and customers) and efficient way to store launchers. Sure the home screen is great for those things that work well to launch that way, but it does not handle all situations. It is terrible if a developer includes lots of utility launchers. It's awful for things you only launch occasionally. It's only organized by "where you felt like putting things" so as the list of installed programs grows, the efficiency of finding something whose name you haven't memorized goes down FAST.
The Start menu may not have been the prettiest thing ever and it may be old, but it had solved those problems better than any other OS had. Sideline it sure, but getting rid of it entirely was stupid.
