They had to do something with a touch interface. Implementation in 8 was a bit clunky. To their credit MS seems to have taken lessons learned to heart. Initial looks at 10 are very promising. I have played a little with it on PC and phone. I am thinking of picking up another laptop and running 10 preview on it. I think the even tighter integration of the OS between pc, phone and tablet is a huge plus. The reason I like 8.1 so much is because how well my phone, pc and tablet work together. 10 should just improve on that immensely. The OS is evolving as touch becomes more prevalent.
The luddites can bemoan and complain, but the market and new devices are forcing the change. People want a consistent experience between devices, nothing before 8 was capable of that. I am sure there are still some DOS fanatics out there, I loved working with DOS, but for the average person it was difficult to do anything beyond what the core programs allowed you to do. Does anyone really want to still be messing with IRQ's, DMA channels, dip switches or EMS? I made a lot of spending money in the 80's and 90's because of them, but we would not have what we have today if we were still dealing with those issues on each pc.
Facts don't lie or have an agenda. Facts are just facts
"God did it" is not an argument. It is an excuse for intellectual laziness.