All that said, I agree with your last point about upgrading being a fair compromise compared to staying in Windows 7 or gasp Windows 8.
All that said, I agree with your last point about upgrading being a fair compromise compared to staying in Windows 7 or gasp Windows 8.
Are you sure? I did a lot of Windows 8 installations when I was evaluating it, and I distinctly recall the option to turn on the same tracking features that 10 had on by default. In the Windows 8 installer they were presented up front and off by default, in 10 they are hidden and on by default.
As of a month ago this is still the case; I reset a Windows 8 hybrid laptop, going through the standard installation screens, and then upgraded it to 10.
But, as you noted, a lot of the telemetry instrumentation has been backported so that argument is lost for someone wanting to avoid upgrading to Windows 10 from an earlier version.