It looks very nice and appears to fill exactly the need me and my friends saw. One major problem with hotspotting the start screen is that it and the search function block the entire screen, preventing you from seeing, say, a webpage telling you to type in a particular command. It's a silly design flaw (amongst others regarding multiple monitors) and should have been seen earlier.
Anyhow, feature requests:
1) A pony.
2) Ability to disable the lower left hotspot while Start8 is active. I hate trying to be careful and go pixel hunting.
3) Resizable? My friend suggested that had the start screen covered merely 1/3 or 1/2 the screen he would've been ok with it.
4) Pony!!!