Win7 to Win8.1 I was surprised to see (as a skeptic) the overall CPU core balance was a huge improvement. I assume Win10 at least inherits this improvement from 8.1.
I liked Win7 but after that I liked 8.1 even more. I suspect the people who didn't like the start screen never spent an hour customising it to their requirements. It's much faster to start apps than win7 once you got it tweaked and you can avoid metro almost altogether.
Hope win10 isn't a step backwards here.