I still had windows XP until just a few weeks ago and I had a new pc for xmas and it obviously came with windows 8. I was dreading it as my father in law has said for the past 2 months- YOU WILL HATE IT!!!
However- I LOVE it. I did exactly the same- deleted all the apps from the start menu and mainly work from the desktop screen. But I have no complaints other than my external hd wont work with it- but I think its more of a fact my hd is failing
It was a big jump from XP to 8.1 but I am seriously loving it