I am a forum/news-site technology massive lurker and i can guarantee to you that win8 is much much more hated that vista was and for obvious reasons: w8 is a totally new interface proposition while vista was just an "upgrade" over the xp ui, but still looks familiar.
Not from what I have seen. Vista was hated with intensity, while Win8 is simply 'not necessary yet'/'not better enough to make me upgrade from Win7'.
About the Surface Pro vs Mac Air vs iPad: I expect to be able to use a dockable 2014 Ubuntu Tablet for all the tasks I could do with any of these in 2013.