I used Win 2000 for some time after XP hit the streets, however, with the way Microsoft put Win 7 out to the public for beta testing there is a large amount of people looking forward to testing Win 8 in the same way. In putting out Win 7 for testing MS was able to see what the computing public wanted in an OS, thus Win 7 became the New Flag Ship in the Windows OS Line. To do the same with Win 8 would again benefit MS in the long run. Also, it helped force key players in the audio, and video markets to get out updates to their products (smart move).
To leave out the computing public would be a huge mistake because it is the public that determines what is best in an operating system.