Win 8 was a step in the right direction for windows on tablets, and for people that dont use their desktops for much more than a few programs and surfing the web. But for technical computing and business use, MS missed the boat altogether. They are abandoning the accumulated expertise of their existing user base for an attempt to compete with Apple and Google in the Tablet market.
The latest thing is for people to get tablets, but except for people who never needed PC's in the first palce, tablets are not going to replace PC's but rather augment them. I have both an iPad and an Android tablet, but they are both lightyears away from even coming close to doing what I or anyone in my company need to do on a PC. In the meantime, I need an OS that actually allows me to fully use my PC, and does not bind me down to doing everything through "tablet vision".
But, there are alternatives, and people are using them successfully and they are proven stable.
One of those is ClassicShell.
So you still have a choice.
Should you have to use this? Well, yes and no.
Since Win8 is designed the way it is, (right or wrong, this is a matter of extreme opinion) then if you find it easier to have something like ClassicShell, then the answer is Yes.
At least you have that choice. they could have blocked it, and/or other software from putting the start menu back, but they (MS) didn't.
They could have designed a better GUI overall for both Tablet and PC. But they didn't and therefore we need to work with what we have.
Win8 is still better in many ways than Win7 (not to say Win7 is bad, it's not, but it is dated, Remember, XP was supposed to retire in about 2005)
Do people have to upgrade to Win8? No.
But, there are benefits, and they aren't bad ones, people just need to realize what those are, and they have been pointed out ad nauseam, the problem is, many people have an extreme bias towards MS, and others just can't get passed the new GUI.
Even using just the New GUI is not difficult, nor is it any more time consuming. It really is just a bit different.
If people took the time without bias and without the whole (i didn't do it this way before) attitude to actually learn new ways of using their desktop,, they might find it's better.