I do not dispute that keyboard shortcuts are faster than any mouse based UI. And I am sure that you became more proficient having to go around the Win 8 hassles using the keyboard. However if the UI can only be practical if a user learns by heart all sorts of commands and shortcuts, then it is a massive failure, it defeats the very purpose of a UI, particularly a UI targeted at consumers.
Picking tools based on first impressions, is in my opinion, a suboptimal strategy. YMMV.
I've been using Win8 for about 1 hour/day for the last few months. The flips between Metro and Desktop still drive me crazy. You might have learned to accept that, or to avoid those flips, but this schizoid mode of operation comes with unneeded cognitive overload for desktop work, even if you did master it.
The thing is, Win8 was optimized for Microsoft's benefit, not yours. Win8.1 gave up some of those things, because (a) it didn't provide the benefit it was optimized for -- windows phone acceptance, and (b) it did alienate a significant portion of the userbase that clang hard to their Win7.
"Using 8 meant you had to learn something", yes. But for what purpose?
That effort made learning xmonad a breeze because I accepted the idea that I would have to spend time paying the dumb tax. It turned out to be only a morning.
Emacs on the other hand....