I assume you're surrounded by people who don't use Windows? Not meant as a snark - most people I know use Windows and they all think 10 is the best one yet, except a few who're (rightfully) angry about the telemetry stuff.

Personally, for me it's just Windows 7 with better looks and great touch screen support. I know no better OS with decent touch screen support. I really like using the touch screen. You Macbook people don't know what you're missing (but I guess that OLED touch-bar thing is going to get you halfway there, pretty cool).

My laptop is basically an iPad Pro but with a much more powerful OS (for stuff like development, especially).

Maybe general consumer opinion is that it doesn't suck as much as Windows 8. I was only considering what I've heard for people in IT. I make a living working on the MS stack and I agree it's a pleasant platform for development, but only for the MS stack. It's inferior for development of just about everything else. I now run Windows in a VM, I don't want it anywhere near my personal things. It's not specifically the telemetry that's so appalling, I expect typical software companies to include it, and I can even forgive it being on by default. It's the fact that users are _not allowed_ to, along with a huge selection of other "features", disable or remove it. Windows is becoming more like iOS, not less, it will eventually leave you just as powerless if it hasn't already.

While things have been a bit buggy since the anniversary update, Microsoft have been improving Windows a lot in the last 4-5 years.

Sure, there have been some "1 step forward 2 steps back" moments, but in total the general reaction from actual users have been quite positive.