I actually liked the full screen Start menu from 8/8.1 for the specific use case of my living room PC. You got a big 10-foot UI by default with nice large icons you could punch from across the room.
The whole put-your-mouse-in-the-corner-and-swipe for the charms menu was baffling, though. I get that this was supposed to be a tablet UI thing, but why make it mandatory for the mouse interface as well?