They didn't need to take away the start button, and it's going frustrate a lot of users. See: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v4boTbv9_nU

I've been running the preview in a VM, and getting back to the launcher frustrated me so much I had to install a small utility made by Stardock that makes a fake start button that takes you to the launcher: http://www.stardock.com/products/start8/.

I'm a Mac guy, but my job requires me to be in Windows half the time. I hope they take a hint from Stardock and that video and put the start button back in.