This is absolutely not practical, for reasons that you probably know. And the "already paying for the software, so they shouldn't pay for the hardware" bit makes no sense.

Bottom line is: MS is juggling a bunch of different plates with Windows 8 which Apple/Google eliminated by design. For this reason, any technical comparison is worthless.

The Surface Pro is intended to run everything that runs on any previous versions of Windows, run fast, be light, provide both a keyboard and a touch-friendly interface, be enterprise-ready, and people are complaining about the amount of storage available after the install? On the cheapest version?

Some people will always find an excuse to dismiss any and everything that comes out of Redmond. It's unreasonable.