Windowblinds for any MS OS has always been developed (<- RTM'd) after the RTM version of the OS was made available. It's done that way simply because no one knows what the finalized features of that OS will be until they're.... final. 

Don't worry, though... Neil isn't a slacker. 

Literally, in some cases.  We have a couple people with those ball chair things.  Quite comfortable.

In all seriousness, though, we are not sitting idly by, and are watching Win 8 developments very closely.

Sure, it definitely make sense to wait until after the RTM is released.

As you say, no-one knows what the finalized features are (and the tweaks between beta '1' and '2' are certainly there.)

Actually, I didn't really think you wouldn't be on the ball..

Is it the point of an OS to present problems which have to be overcome, or to be the answer to more efficient and esthetic computing?

I feel it's the latter.

The point of an OS is so that you don't have to interact with hardware directly.  It provides a layer between you and the hardware to make using that hardware more useful.  The "problems which have to be overcome" that inevitably present themselves seem to be (mostly) in one of two categories: limitations or unintended consequences.

Limitations could be hardware based, as in technology isn't advanced enough at the time of release, or software based, as in having to support legacy APIs, etc.

Unintended consequences are the trickier ones.  Looking at the reasoning behind removing the start menu, Microsoft stated that its usage had dropped by 11% between Vista and 7.  This was attributed to things like the being able to pin to the taskbar, which is fine, but the usage didn't drop to zero.

The biggest thing they didn't think about was what it was still used for.  My theory is that it's now used more often when someone doesn't know where something is, so that's where they START (get it?) to look when they try to find it.  Without that single point of connection to their computer, what they're faced with is a mish-mash of different places where only some things are, and that's where a big portion of the userbase is going to be alienated.  They've taken out a release valve for confusion.

Microsoft looked at the frequency of usage, but not the importance of usage.

Hello:

        Yes in windows 8 doesn`t works. We must wait. Keep pasinece

Since i preordered one because of you i hold you fully responsible 

It better be good.

However the chances that i install W8 in my lifetime as a daily OS are zero. It's an awful cobbled up mess that can't ever be massaged to work well as an UI. Will see what W9 looks like.

Bring back aero, and make metro start screen skinning a reality. PLEASE. That is all

Trust me, I don't.  That is why I'm asking the question here.  It seems unlikely as that would mean the interface was a "snap on module", like the old Win16 subsystem.  However, if it were that simple, I would think we'd already see articles about folks coding shell replacements, and see more open source betas in the wild.  In any case, given Stardock's extensive experience coding to the Windows UI environment, I am interested to hear what their take is on this.  Or if anyone on the forums has had similar exposure, I'm curious as to how this compares to say, Windows 7 UI.

I don't think they're assuming you are going to use a touchscreen right away, but they're betting on touch being the way the industry is heading.  It's risky, because even though they might be right, they're sacrificing the short term (desktop users) for a potential new paradigm in the long term.  If they lose too many before touch becomes pervasive, they might not be able to capitalize when it does.

The sad part is, with a small number of adjustments to a few key areas, they could have mitigated that short term hit (though not entirely, to be sure), while leaving them in a good position for the long term.

Or in everything Microsoft DO about Windows 8 either

I'm in the beta test for a expansion of a MMO game. I told them that I'd toss a copy on Win 8 to see how it works. Since my other copy was sometime last year I downloaded a new one. I was happy to find out it had changed a bunch. No, darn welcome page is still there, and they have something related to Mickey to replace the Start Menu BUT I could at least go more than five minutes without swearing.

To the game. No, darn thing hangs during install so I cheat and copy it from my everyday computer. It seems to last a while that way. With the distraction of Olympics and such, I went back to getting lost in a new game using my regular laptop.

I am looking to forward to windowsblinds 8.