If this was desktop I would agree with you. Having a good start menu makes sense and the Unity (at least usable) and then Windows 8 (abomination) show that a UI like that doesn't always make sense outside phones and tablets.
The flip of this is true as well. For a phone, my uses are far less complex. I don't have a zillion folders, apps, programming environments, mapped drives...etc. I need internet, SMS, camera, email, office apps, and that is about it. With Windows Phone I had that on my fully customized home screen with all the icons sized just the way I wanted them. I also liked that searching for apps was just slide to the right and scroll by alphabetical order. With Android there is just so much crap going on that I don't use that gets in the way. Now I'm sure some people do use it, but I do not.
My wife had a Nokia Lumia Windows phone as well. She likes the fact that there is better support and apps on Android than what we had with Windows (especially at the end), but she really misses the Windows UI and she had Android for many years before going Windows.