Why should we care that Windows 8 boots faster? This is so inconsequential. For example, my Windows 7 laptop gets rebooted only to install Microsoft Windows updates, so maybe once a month. My desktops also normally go to sleep or get turned off for the night. Windows 7 already boots fast enough on modern hardware. And besides, if Microsoft thinks that faster boot and shutdown is a great feature of Windows 8, perhaps they should have made it easier to find the shutdown function in its GUI? As a power user, I may go with Windows 8 if I have to, but to recommend it to my friends and relatives? Never.
The fact that you can buy a 3rd party utility to make the Windows 8 desktop palatable is not an excuse for this OS. And the desktop still looks uglier compared to 7. Yes, hardware support is becoming an issue under Win 7 with new hardware, but it is nice to know that there are still vendors actively building Windows 7 compatible hardware configurations.