Sure, WP8 has its quirks but I don't think it's all that bad? The interface is clean, the OS is smooth and the app store has quite a few useful apps (although a few major ones are still missing).
I've heard that what you say above is possible with the right third party apps but after trying it out I decided that it's Vista 2.0. Vista had good things going for it but they were cancelled out by the annoying features. IMO win7 is the best release Microsoft has ever made and I wouldn't be surprised if it had the same long lifespan as winXP while win8 languishes in obscurity. With the strides gaming has been making on Linux though I'm really hoping that I can make a permanent switch at some point soon.
