If it means going from the Windows CE kernel to Windows NT kernel and leave a pretty new face on top of an old platform? Then yes.
I think the source from Microsoft said the start BUTTON is to possibly come back due to a upper management decision, not the actual menu. Not sure though as the wording of start button and menu seem to be one in the same thing for some reason....
In retrospect, if you look at Windows 95, yes it did have a way to get back to Program Manager. In Windows xp, yes, you could make it look like Windows Classic 9x, 2000 basically. But fast forward several years, did that even matter? You can't get back to the Program Manager in Windows 7 or 8. You can't make Windows 8 look like Windows 2000 anymore. Why? Simply because no one is really doing that anymore. There is no need. The changes in 95 and xp allowed the delay of ripping the band aid off so to speak, or simply a crutch.
What Microsoft did was realize that, and not have that crutch and not to pussy foot around with ripping that band aid off with the radical (this can be debatable) changes. Office 2007 didn't have an option to revert back to a drop down menu system, people initially didn't like it. Does it matter now anymore? No, because got used to it and realized it is better. What seemed risky turned out to be positive. Windows 8 is a tad more dramatic than that, but if history keeps its tendency to repeat itself, same thing will end up happening...
Although if you ask me, Microsoft did shoot themselves in the foot a couple of times. First was not showing the user after the OOBE screen on HOW to use Windows 8 other than moving your mouse pointer to the top right corner. You can seriously learn how to use Windows 8 with the new Microsoft Touch Mouse drivers, a device that was made for Windows 7 shows you automatically, after installing the drivers for Windows 8, how to use 8 better than the OS did. That is a problem as the main frustration point is the user not knowing what to do, because they were never shown what to do.
The second was what they pinned to the Start Screen. The default Start Screen in the RTM differed from the Developer Preview's one, the DP had File Explorer pinned to it as well as I think Computer. This should have been done from the VERY literal start. Desktop locations and items should had been there, like the Libraries, Computer, Downloads, maybe Control Panel. So effectively, Start shifted from a small menu to a larger visual menu that has the things the menu had. When you look at the Start Screen at default configuration, it doesn't strike you it's a "Desktop" based OS when in fact, it really is. THAT would be an more effective "crutch" from 7 to 8. There is a change to it, but it's less dramatic as you can see some familiar things on it. In the leaked 8.1 build, there are two new tile sizes. They should take the Desktop tile as HUGE sized, and pin the File Explorer locations as baby tiles under it or just around it. A Desktop group maybe.