I think Win8 is a downgrade in almost every aspect, but it does boot faster. Granted, I think that it's doing something akin to hibernating in Windows 7 and not actually shutting down.
I wonder if people are comparing the boot time of year-old Windows 7 installations to brand new Windows 8 installations.
I know my SSD-based Windows 7 system could boot to the desktop in less than 10 seconds when it was new, but now that it's over a year old with dozens of additional installed programs and drivers, I'm lucky to see the desktop in less than 30 seconds.
