The operating system that we call Windows 8 can't be the last word on implementing an entirely new user interface to replace (or, better, to supplement) the "legacy" desktop. I say this based on over a year of using the various Preview versions of Windows 8, plus upgrading more than half of the computers my wife and I use at home, plus having bought a Surface RT so I could say I was truly using the Modern interface without much of the desktop experience intruding.

Windows 8 (or the current iteration of RT) has too many inconsistencies to be the fully realized Modern experience that the designers were aiming for. For instance - the Windows Store. You can install apps from this source, but sometimes when you try to actually use them, the app will pop up its initial screen, only to throw you back to the Modern screen after some indeterminate time, having failed to load for some unknown reason. Only later do you find that there's an update for the app that will make it actually do what you expected it to do initially.

The apps that are included as part of the Windows 8/RT experience are often pale imitations of their desktop equivalents. Is this because touch is less capable of the range of behaviors or services than the desktop world, or is it just because they've been rushed to market before they're done? Mail, for instance, doesn't support POP email. My main email address is with Comcast. All they offer, besides their web email, is POP email service. Consequently, I can't use my Surface RT to check my main email address except by way of the built-in IE 10. I don't really get much sense of capability in that app either. If I had the choice, I'd load Chrome.

In summary, there are a lot of things about Windows 8/RT that I like, primarily those improvements that are below the UI - better security, better speed, smaller footprint, etc. On the other hand, it's uglier, in my opinion, than its predecessor, and still seems like a work in progress. I hope it's a success, because only in that way will it have the chance to improve to be a truly great OS. Right now, it seems like a good first effort.