Livre d'Or

I would suggest trying Windows 8 before rejecting it on the basis of "things you've heard"; if you don't use the Metro applications then it's similar to Windows 7 in most ways. The only thing that's unavoidably and overtly different is that the start menu becomes full screen; if you spend much time using that then you might (or might not) find it a problem, but I assume most people spend most of their time using applications rather than starting them...
This may well not be what you want but I'm going to mention it anyway as it's still cluttering up the house!