Surface RT or Surface Pro? Were the Surfaces (or Surfactants, I'm not sure what the plural is) meant to be used in a professional capacity, or were they intended for personal use?

Surface RT, Personal use.

The RT was the subject of several lunch time discussions over my recent internship. I remember one dev recounting the nightmare of buying a video rental through the xbox video app I think it was. The nightmare hinged on several issues one of which being the lack of silverlight support. His surface was out of space so downloading did not work yet streaming required the not present silverlight. He had to clear out some files in the end.

Another dev used his as a picture frame. Beyond those two cases I only ever heard of the RT going unused. This despite an internal program one could use to unlock the surface. Once unlocked any developer could then recompile one of the windows binaries and generate a testing package which could be installed. In theory this means the devs could have full control of the device. In practice no one appeared to care.

Another fun fact I learned: the Apple store gives discounts on the iPad if you show them your microsoft badge while the Microsoft store does not.

The Apple store gives discounts to employees of other IT companies as well: IBM, SAP, Dell, HP, etc. The list is pretty extensive. Just ask for it and don't forget to bring your company badge :)

does it work if you borrowed someone else's badge? :D

That's the problem, nobody knows what it's for. You can replace a desktop with a Macbook Pro, but not a Surface Pro as was so touted.

Don't even get me started on what the Surface RT is supposed to be.