The entire thing for the average system user. Some may need whatever it offers over vista, but for gamers and basic user it offers nothing other than TRIM.
Windows 7 is easier on resources than Windows Vista. Average user or not, everyone benefits.
As for this "New Feature", You get asked on first bootup upon installing windows 8 if you want to activate it. So unless you're the idiot that blasts through it all using the default answers, I doubt you could miss this, or call it an invasion of privacy solely because of this. If you somehow missed this, or an noob installed windows for you, then type in "smartscreen" into search and disable. Big whoop.
What the hell is the big deal? I don't remember a big fuss when IE incorporated almost the exact same feature, but for websites. In my opinion that's worse.
Also, I've noticed how much media seems to be harshing on windows 8. Know what, they harshed on windows vista too, and now there's people even today on this very thread defending it and it's practicability. Get over it it people, try it on a seperate partition or something, if you like it, cool, if not, whatever, delete it, it's not that hard to do.
As a long time windows user (since 3.11), I don't find Windows 8 to be near as terrible as I've read on the internet. Yes, it's kind of frustrating to change some actions that's you've been doing for so long, but guess what, humans CAN learn different ways to approach things. Hey, frequently used start menu items are no longer on the bottom left, they are on the top right. Start menu has been replaced by "start", which is...like a start menu. Except just for apps. Windows media player no longer supports DVD's? Seriously, hands up, who uses windows media player? If you do, google VLC, free alternative that in my opinion is better and you should be using it over WMP anyways. Same thing for gadgets...duh, rainmeter. Metro apps? Yeah, ok, a little odd on a non-tablet. Oh hey, I don't have to use them, and hey, some are actually pretty handy.
Is Windows 8 perfect? No, of course not, when has there ever been a perfect Windows? But it's not terrible, I don't mind using it, and I can see some advantages that are nice to have. Like the speed, crap is it ever fast.
/rant
That being said, I can see a lot of people staying with Windows 7. It is a great OS, and the last of the "traditional" setup. I haven't decided yet if I will upgrade my computers, still doing my 30 day forcing myself to use it on my laptop and try it out.
