While I agree with you that using more modern software is a better approach, I completely disagree with your "guess" that Works 7 absolutely will not work, especially since you haven't provided any reasoning other than your assertion that "I would not be surprised if Microsoft did not incorporate something into the Windows 8 code to keep their discontinued software from being able to be installed."
I did some research on Works 7 and it was originally released for Win 98 so you may actually be right that it won't work, depending on whether or not Warmbells new laptop is running 64-bit Win 8 or 32-bit Win 8. This is because 64-bit Win 8 doesn't support running 16-bit apps while 32-bit does. It wouldn't be based on your unsupported conspiracy theory.
As to your wondering why anyone would want to run older, unsupported software, it's possible that warmbells has been using Works for many years and is very comfortable with it, it does what he wants/needs and he does not want to learn how to accomplish what he wants/needs in some newer, more complex software package. It's not always about money, the fact that OpenOffice and LibreOffice are free to download and use may have no bearing on the decision.