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fjorder
If you're a keyboard and mouse user working primarily in the desktop, it is very jarring to jump into the full-screen metro interface every single time you want to do something start-menu related. Metro isn't well optimized for keyboard & mouse users either. e.g. With the Win7 start menu, you could type in "computer management" hit enter and get that panel. In Win8 you must additionally mouse over and select the settings search category (I'm on a Win7 machine, so I'm not sure that computer management even shows up properly in metro without tweaking!). Effectively, for desktop users Metro is less efficient in addition to being jarring.

Install classic shell (classicshell.net) and your problems are over. It puts a start menu back into Win8, and it works pretty well. There are no search categories, and the cheese metro hides from you is in plain sight! Once this is on your machine Win8 is basically Win7, only better. Highly recommended!

If you're setting up a new Win8 box, classic shell is available through ninite as well, which is pretty handy.

alexgaribay
Windows key + X is your friend.
fjorder
It is a nice shortcut, but I think they added it mostly because they belatedly realized how much metro sucks for accessing settings from the desktop.