You are confusing the win32 subsystem with the NT kernel. They are not the same, the win32 layer acts as a translation. Also symbolic and hard links are supported by NTFS, they are just not exposed in the UI. There are utilities to create them if you really want to.

The shell itself and the rest of userland has very little to do with the kernel. It seems its the userland you are upset with. Swapping out the kernel won't fix that.