It's possible to work around Metro (with 3rd party software), but what's most alarming is the reasons Microsoft is pushing Metro and not allowing users to disable it.
See, you can get Metro apps only from the Windows store, where Microsoft decides what can be sold, where they get 30% cut from software sales and ad revenue from ad-supported apps.
So it's no surprise they want to move everyone to Metro yesterday, and not give you any choice about it (apart from not upgrading). If Metro takes off, there probably won't be a desktop or desktop support in Widnows 9 or 10. Hope you like walled gardens.