The problem is the threat of tablets. Apple's solution was to scale up their phone OS, keeping the tablet form factor completely separate from the laptop and desktop. Microsoft could have done this with Windows Phone 7. Instead they are betting on a future where the "tablet" is merely another PC form factor, with the user plugging it into some sort of dock to transform it into a laptop or desktop form factor, complete with the expected ports and peripherals. In this future users would want to have the same interface and apps across both modes.

Microsoft's own Surface centres around this perceived future; while usable as a pure tablet it ships with a built-in stand and removable "touch cover" (keyboard and touchpad) so the Surface can also be set up like a laptop form factor. Many of the OEM offerings for both 8 and RT are taking the same approach. This is in stark contrast to Android and iOS, where tablets are rarely/never sold with such peripherals in the box.

Microsoft have already started running TV ads showing off Metro to lessen the inevitable confusion. The severity of the transition may actually make its reception more positive than the Ribbon; the Ribbon was an unfamiliar feature intruding into an otherwise unchanged environment whereas Metro is basically a clean sweep of everything but the brand name, with the familiar only seen if specifically requested. Many everyday users only want a PC to do social networking, email, internet, games and a bit of Word, which is why many have been quite happy with the similarly unrecognisable iPad, and Metro simplifies these tasks in a similar way.

If Microsoft can sell users on the concept of a single device that serves all uses then this risky move would put them in a very comfortable position, leaving Apple and Google struggling to catch up since their products are in no way a "real" computer like Windows 8 (and even Windows RT). iOS and Android are ultimately mobile operating systems (iOS doesn't even support mice), and many tablet users still keep a computer around to do all the things these can't; Windows 8 and RT are still Windows under the hood, making a secondary device unnecessary.

I'm a long way away from choosing something like the Surface over a traditional laptop, but I'll certainly be interested to see whether Microsoft's picture of the future becomes reality.

This is an area where Microsoft's own precautions could work against them; because of the sandboxing approach WinRT apps have to talk to hardware sensors indirectly through APIs, so if Microsoft hadn't implemented it themselves it couldn't exist at all in Metro apps, and that would be one less check box for OEMs to brag about (it would also inconvenience developers wanting to port their apps to/from Windows Phone 8, which also introduces NFC). Unfortunately this approach means that attackers could potentially target vulnerabilities of the sandbox itself rather than relying on the user happening to have a particular vulnerable app or vulnerable version of an app.
At least one NFC-enabled Windows 8 device will ship in October (the Lenovo ThinkPad Tablet 2), so I guess we'll soon find out whether the WinRT approach makes NFC more or less secure. Hopefully Windows only listens over NFC when NFC-capable apps are installed...

IM with Arkose on the Win8 thing.

Performance wise and stability W8 has it in spades over 7. I love the better mutimonitor support and suprisingly all the features on my ATI driver work without a hitch. The #1 most surprising thing is Defender, it has saved my but a few times now, i really enjoy the integration and the resource usage compared to other options. As for there firewall, its still a joke and you can't go in stealth mode. So until Comodo supports win8 i'll be using a hardware firewall on my network.

Elenarie:
As for Server 2012, i like powershell thats all well and good, scripts are common place and yadda yadda. In all respect, Ive been using 2k8 for years and then this new OS is born and thrown on you that fundamentally changes how we interface with our hardware.
Eventually I'll get used to it, but to lose so much familiarity in-place of something fanciful and new without a toggle to get back it hurts. There will be no switching to 2012 until there is an unavoidable need too. Im using it a fair amount each day to get used to it but its far from smooth, more like sliding on sandpaper naked.

That's certainly a fair point, it remains to be seen how well it works, but personally, I would rather than NFC not be available at all. Any computer I buy is going to have to have the ability to turn it off as I personally see no reason to trust it.

But, as I implied that doesn't really matter which OS I'm using, I don't want NFC anywhere near my computer. I'd remove the chip if I could.

Still a bit about this... by using less resources, do you mean mainly the CPU, not GPU? If it is mainly about the CPU resources, I wouldn't be surprised if it isn't that visible with GPU-heavy 3D games or benchmark utilities. Depends where the bottleneck is in each case (game, and system, specific).

I googled some other gaming benchmark comparisons from around the net, and to me they seemed to tell the same story, ie. the gaming benchmarks seem rather identical between Win7 and Win8 (preview). But as said, they wouldn't necessarily tell if the CPU loads were higher when running on Win7.

im a stickler for making things work.... as an example i have Linux running purely for odd games like AVP2 and Infernal i run them though WINE since i cant get them to work in windows. i even have d3d enabled copies of windows 95 running virtually for some games. i go to the extreme for compatibility. I honestly have to say, lag, skips, hesitations and other resource issues have either been reduced or vanished when i migrated to Windows 8 pro x64. Skyrim and Diablo 3 were my worst offenders. Since the switch there smooth as glass, about same or slightly better FPS but oh so smooth.

Oh, so you don't like the new GUI. I thought you don't like a GUI at all, and since PowerShell is the only other option (and you mentioned it was being forced upon users), was kind of confused about that. :)

Win 8 has a rewritten scheduler it's one of the reasons Bulldozer see's a larger speed increase than intel chips. Multithreaded apps see the biggest speed increase due to this change.

Windows 8 also has WDDM 1.2 which probably improves performance for gpu stuff.
Also quite possibly some of the 7 vs 8 benchmarks were around before WDDM1.2 drivers were actually avaialable and they were simply using the old WDDM 1.1 drivers.