I have win8 in a VM so that I can play with it, and while its UI is annoying - it seems to actually run well. No problems with it (other then having to Google how to shut the dumb thing down). I do not know how it performs on actually hardware as I finally retired my last windows laptop, and got a nice top end 15" Macbook Pro Retina (work machine, way out of my price league, not even the same solar system).
I have run every version of MS Windows since 3.0 and frankly, IME, the every other rule has applied since 3.11 fwg. The jury is still out on Win8, but eh, history tells me Win9 will be what Win8 promised
As for office, I will probably migrate away from MS Office if it stays on its current path. I dislike reoccurring charges as a general rule. I need to try the current builds of LibreOffice/etc - I have not used one since before Oracle bought Sun. Big problem of course is since I work at a university we have site wide license to pretty much everything MS has, so I will have to stick with it at some level.