Not quite. If it was exactly like Windows 7, I wouldn't like it. The desktop experience from 7 with all the improvements and fixes that 8 made to that desktop experience.
Sinofsky's mistake was his delusion of a Metrified world.
The thing is, Metro is actually a really great interface... for touch. I have a Windows tablet and a secondary/backup Windows phone. And I really like them. But Metro is not a good interface for keyboard/mouse and, most importantly, it's not a multitasking UI. Hell, there are no windows!
This would apply if I can divide my active input attention across multiple windows on a normal desktop - which I can't, I am limited to one drag pointer cursor). At most, I have maybe four windows, shown without overlap, across two monitors for content exposure and work. Any more smaller, then I would need bigger - higher resolution monitors, or more monitors, which desktops can already do, Windows 8 can already do this and even at a more satisfactory level now.
Modern areas, try to bridge this with snapping of the apps + desktop - and it generally works. On larger touchscreen Windows devices, manipulation of window elements work too on the desktop. Even on smaller devices, with a pen, one can still get around.
My main beef on sole-tablet-touch devices, is that there is THAT compromise of syncing software, software compatibility, content carry over, and ALL companies not working in full in cohesion anyways - meaning those who claim "experience" are not even touching that aspect of "experience". It is just as hobbled, but now you are juggling one or more PHYSICAL devices in tow.
Where Sinofsky fucked up is that he had this delusion of touch-is-the-future. Which it isn't. And Microsoft's mistake is that they gave Sinofsky too much power and let him fuck things up.
Initially, the biggest disconnect being in Settings. Touch, is complimentary in all reality and fully augments the desktop area in MANY ways (on capable devices). It is what I mentioned in the first posting in this thread - marketing. It was a mistake to solely push and market touch - without showing how this can really be leveraged amongst a typical desktop environment or coexisting as such.
It also wasn't 8 that started the whole tablet thing. You can easily see in the past with some look, that XP of all things began that seed, but past Windows had pen computing initiative. People complain about the Ribbon aspects, but that too lead to a workable solution in the desktop in program interface, without the menu dive down as in the Start menu of yore (which people ALSO complained about - but many other third party programs are using ribbon aspects now too).
In my adoption of 8, Modern hasn't been my main focus - Surface Pros (IE being an exception of Modern focus) or Desktop PCs otherwise. As I mentioned before, the Start screen - a prime focus, is just a BETTER desktop icon launcher in all ways + Live tile information (widgets in a sense, not shown all the time).
Snapping, just eliminates the bulk of user window management for Modern areas.
Instead, the first impression of 8 that people got was a touch-centric handheld interface on a traditional keyboard/mouse system. So instead of judging Metro as a touch interface, people judged it as a KB/M interface and hated it.
People also don't realize that many or if not at times, have their active window either the largest shown window, or maximized. Even if multiple windows are arranged, one would drag their cursor amongst them all - more frequently than dragging to tiles in the Start Screen, which if invoked with the Windows key (KB/M strict use), their cursor is potentially closer to their intended pinned tile.
And on a technical side, Microsoft gets blamed for other OEM/peripheral driver implementations. Why do you think generic drivers are made by Microsoft? To at least cover a MINIMAL level of use to make up the lack of their OEMs being in line at times - and to still allow the broad use of hardware out there.
Security? It is ALWAYS an ever-growing cat and mouse problem, on any platform. Soon, iOS, OSX, and Android would balloon in addressing these continued exceptions. But nowadays, it is still a USER problem in security - running things without consideration, accepting apps to install without thorough look of the things they require in information...