Windows 8: WTF is Ballmer thinking?

Secure ``poot'' farting on your freedom.
No more Start Menu, so anyone who was familiar with it since Windows 95/98/whatever has to learn a whole new UI.
Ribbon interface in more places, so anyone who kept Office 2003 or switched to Open/LibreOffice because they hate ribbon has no escape.
The GNOME/KDE UIs are more similar to Windows than Windows 8 is!
Writing programs ``apps'' in JavaScript/HTML.
One ``app'' at a time, because the rest of your cores will be used by bloated JavaScript VMs.
Making the desktop a secondary ``legacy'' interface, because nobody needs more than 640K one app at a time.
Designing your main UI for touch screens, because most desktops and laptops (the ``bread and butter'' of Windows) have touch screens, right?
Believing that supporting a touch screen means you need to gimp and dumb down your OS's features.
Removing the registry key that allows Metro to be disabled.
Turning a $1000 PC into a $100 phone, but without the ability to make phone calls.

All the market research says touch is where the world is headed.
For those of us without a touch monitor, we're not headed there.

I'm using the "classic desktop setup" when it comes to my computer hardware.  In the previous Windows editions, I turned off the sidebar because I never used it and didn't want it hanging around.  I tend to turn off other dynamic UI effects for the same reason, in addition to distraction.  Is there an option or key that I can set somewhere that turns off the touchscreen accessibility simplifications I do not need (or appreciate) but retain any Windows UI improvements related to desktop and file manipulation?