IMO I still consider 7 new. Heck most companies are still on XP and probably only thinking about going to 7 now.
Being newer than a dinosaur doesn't mean it's not old.
it's just not a serious enough OS for business purposes. It's more of a home entertainment toy, ok for HTPCs and stuff like that but not for doing real work.
Um, Windows 8 is no better an HTPC than Windows 7. In fact, Media Center and MPEG-2 support are optional extras in 8 whereas they were standard in 7. But 8 is a perfectly good work PC. It's my main development machine. There's absolutely nothing about Windows 8 (aside from its horrible out-of-box defaults and start screen pins, which I'm sure any enterprise would reconfigure anyway) that makes it unsuitable for the office.
Also definitely not IT friendly such as trying to control it via remote programs.
There is a HUGE improvement in Remote Desktop in Windows 8. Hell, the RDP update in Windows 8 is probably the most substantial and important RDP update that I've ever seen, and I've been using RDP since Windows 2000. Every time I Remote Desktop into a Windows 7 system, I am reminded of why dumping 7 for 8 was a good idea.
Trying to deal with mouse gesture stuff and hidden menus and crap over VNC or in test VMs is a big nightmare.
Wait, why are you trying to invoke Metro UI? I thought you used the computer for serious things? I love Windows 8. I hate Metro. I don't care that the charms bar is hard to invoke when your mouse flies over the edge and out of the screen because... hmm, when was the last time I needed charms? I'll admit, though, that the lack of a start button in 8.0 did make scenarios like that a bit frustrating, but that's irrelevant for 8.1.
Imagine trying to use metro over a slow VPN link over a DS0 link. In the business world, this happens.
It actually works very well. Metro degrades nicely over remote sessions. For example, animations are killed. And coupled with the improvements to RDP, using Windows 8 via an offsite remote session is a far better experience than 7.