Also absent from this list is an updated console. Windows 8 still uses the old DOS shell. You can't even resize the window past 80 characters. It's embarrassing.
The problem is that it's horribly confusing to work with - the syntax is bizarrely inconsistent as you switch back and forth between "commandlets" and .NET methods, and the part of the power of plain text is that it's self-documenting and forces simplicity of API. Powershell allows full OOP, which doesn't map well to the need for things to be simple when doing command-line scripts. Also, the Powershell interface lacks the various tools you'd expect from an OOP IDE that let you learn about the objects/methods/whatever.
I do like the absense of the start menu. To me, the big failing of Win8 wasn't replacing the start menu with a fullscreen pseudo-desktop, it was the schizophrenic relationship between the fullscreen pseudo-desktop and the "classic" apps, as well as the bizarre "charms" things and the lack of a conventional taskbar when using fullscreen apps.
Desktops and larger notebooks have enough real-estate on the screen for an always-visible task-switcher, and the "Charms" thing is too touch-oriented.
Also you can remove apps you don't want from the start screen. It's not supposed to include everything on your PC. It's supposed to be the things you use frequently. They only did the auto-pinning in 8 to increase discoverability, but it added more clutter than value.
I didn't hate it, but in Windows 7 I found a better alternative that almost made it redundant.
I have found myself pinning the 20-or-so programs I most often use to the new-style Taskbar instead. I also use Jump Lists and various related tricks all the time. I frequently run many applications at once, I open lots of command prompts and Explorer windows, and with 4 megapixels of real estate on my primary monitor alone, I want these functions one click away a lot more than I need a few extra pixels across the bottom of my screen.
Given that easier-to-use alternative, about the only things that still make me open the Start menu on Windows 7 are searching for programs I don't use regularly and accessing control panels.
My biggest pet peeves in the Windows 7 UI are also dominated by how quickly I can get things loaded so I can start doing something useful:
1. You can't pin starting directories for command prompts the same way you can for Explorer windows.
2. Opening a command prompt from an Explorer window isn't on the context menu by default.
3. You can't pin a Control Panel icon that pops up a menu for accessing the various panels.
4. Running things as Administrator is still clunky, particularly command prompts.
5. I often want to start some combination of applications I use frequently, position their windows in the same way, and then give a specific program the focus ready to start work. This ought to be a trivial use of any operating system's scripting facilities, but it is difficult-to-impossible to set this up for access with a single click from the Taskbar without writing real code using system APIs to do it.
If Microsoft fixed these frustrations and otherwise left Windows 7 exactly as it was, I would buy Windows 9 at full price for every PC I use in a heartbeat. There are several other things they could do that would make me pay much, much more: grown-up command line tools, a robust and standardised framework for installing/updating/uninstalling applications, a more transparent and robust model for controlling access to system resources -- basically addressing the major weaknesses that Windows has relative to Linux or OS X today for power users.
In contrast, I can't imagine any development of the direction they've been going with Windows 8 that would motivate me to run it, and we actively seek vendors who will provide Windows 7 instead for our new computers at present.
More on-topic: I don't quite hate the Windows 7 start menu, but it could be made better. Unfortunately, Microsoft chose not to improve on a good concept and, in my opinion, ruin things with their new interace. It is one of the main reasons I don't want to switch to Windows 8. I've been a Linux user at home for a long time now, though, it's thankfully only my work laptop that I need to have Windows on. I have a game computer that has Windows XP and will probably be upgraded to Windows 8 but I couldn't really care less about the interface there: I just want to start games on that machine, nothing else.
You can if you know those good ol' mode-commands. But yeah, no drag'n'resize like on all other platforms unless you install third party software like MinTTY and ConEmu.
Or, you can change your defaults...
Right click the top bar > Defaults Window Size > Width > 'What ever you want'
Oh, and use powershell if you want more.
bash, zsh and fish are far better and more intuitive that Powershell. Plus cmd.exe is a joke if you compare against Konsole, Yakuake, eterm, etc....