It's really obvious on Windows Phone what is a button and what is not apart from a few shitty 3rd party apps. This is regurgitating one of the many fables about WP.
Thanks for being rational - you are spot on.
And Microsoft deserves some credit for developing their own design language and UX ideas with Metro.
I have two Windows Phone 8 devices and an iPad. And indeed, they are nothing alike. Live tiles are a central concept in WP and does not really have an equivalent in iOS 7.
Another use difference (although it's a bit undermined by Microsoft's Facebook app) is that iOS is app centered ("There's an app for that."), while Windows Phone centers around hubs. E.g. you wouldn't go to the Facebook app to look up e.g. the latest Facebook status updates for a person. You go to that person in the people list (or that person's live tile) where you have information of different social networks integrated.