This issue would have been super-easy to work around if they wanted to call it Windows 9. Hell, put two spaces before 9. Make it "Windows Version 9" instead of "Windows 9". Whatever. MS does this all the time, shimming around people's broken & crappy app code. This looks like no sweat to me.
When I see a product being marketed based on how it sounds intead of its real value, I consider that a fishy smell.
I imagine future versions will be Windows 10 II, Windows 10 III, Windows 10 IV, Windows 10 V, etc.
Discounts for straight-edgers (xWWx for sXe!)
"Super Windows X Turbo: World Warriors Edition" sounds pretty sweet to me.
(I guess the downvoters haven't installed Windows 8.1 Update.)
[1] http://www.zdnet.com/microsoft-christens-the-next-version-of...
A few months ago DirectX 12 was announced (and it's quite probable that AMD's Mantle was the reason for this roadmap change).
That are a lot of 10s.
Especially keeping in mind that poorly written != useless/bad, at least not always.