If anything, I found compatability with old games to be the same or better under Windows 8.
For example an old gem called Dungeon Keeper 2 always crashed on my tablet when running Windows 7, yet nary of an issue under Windows 8.
Intel's drivers probably have a big part to play in that too though, they're not exactly known for having the best graphics drivers.

The monstrosity that is windows 8 needs to be burned with fire.

The best feature about Win8 is it's not WinME. The worst feature about Win8 is it's not Win7

Luckily I don't use Intel graphics, but about compatibility, as you suggest, it's often the HW/SW combination that decides the outcome. For example with XP I'm fine on the laptop, where it's carefully tweaked by HP, but I had problems on the desktop, where I was fine with Win 2000 and I' too with Win 7, so I'm quite afraid of changing. OTOH, with new HW all this could change, but I'll obviously try and keep Win 7, to save money and time on learning to use a new OS, before trying something else, so raising the cost of the upgrade too, BTW.
What I could try too is putting Win 7 on a diet, using it as a game console I guess I could disable an awful lot of services.

i don't have a touch screen so just go to desktop,doesn't make much difference to me but i don't really use the microsoft media stuff from the OS

well, it might seems a bit different at first, but its quite fast to get used to. I don't understand how its harder than windows 7 since u got alot of shortcuts to boast ur work, UI might be touch prefered but is still easier to use with keyboard-mouse combination, Performance is actually much better. Games actually runs better, It loads faster, compatiblity is good with older programs. I have yet to see a program which doesn't on it. What else people want?

You all left off BAD WINDOWS ME

What's good about it?

As a break from tradition, file sharing with the previous version (windows 7) is finally painless. Getting XP to play with NT to play with Win 7 was always a nightmare. And I have not needed to do a hard reboot yet (knock on wood). My win7 desktop has locked up completely on a few occasions where nothing but pulling the plug helped.

Other then that, not much. I got used to it because it came installed on my new laptop. I never use the metro stuff, deleted and disabled all of it. Deleted Skype too as it was using 17% of the CPU (2.4Ghz i7) while it was doing 'nothing'.

The thing I miss the most is a complete task bar. It's annoying to have to mouse over the file explorer icon or hold alt-tab to get to the hidden windows. There's this big empty bar at the bottom, use it. For example I always lose the insert image / video dialog box for vgchartz.

Nothing that i've noticed but the start up time

Takes maybe 10 seconds to go from cold shut off to being on and ready to open up whatever I want.

Before i woudl take windows 7 like 2 minutes it seemed to finally be ocmpletely ready and not loading shit.

But considering how often I ever turn my pc off, its not such a big deal.  Pretty much pc is on 24/7 unless I go on vacation.  I suppose it does make it so that I do updates now when available.  Since restart time is like 30 seconds from start to finish instead of taking like 5 minutes its not such a hassle.

Windows 7 is an amazing operating system, it does everything perfectly.   I had to get used to no Show Desktop button, like Vista had, however when I realized you could show Desktop by hitting the bottom right corner(Unchanged in Windows 8)  it's even better.

I'm not exactly sure what changes you speak of, however, I really do like the new Start Menu.   Sure I will miss being able to go to the Control Panel or hitting the Windows key to open the start menu, but once you navigate it, it's not too bad.

It's not OMG MUST HAVE WINDOWS 8 OVER WINDOWS 7, but I find it to be a decent operating system, and works MUCH better if you Splashtop or have touch screen accessibility.