I was sent a test device with Astoria by Microsoft, and I an still flabbergasted they abandoned it. It worked really well, Android apps did feel like the most sluggish apps on the platform... but only because they ran like Android apps.

Just one more stepping stone on Microsoft's constant inability to make good decisions.

Fundamentally though, the biggest issue probably was Microsoft was still far too afraid to fight Google directly, their monopoly was at its height but user perception of that hadn't caught up yet.