Keni
...until win8 which I don't really like.
I went straight from XP to Win8. I hated Win8 day one, but not for performance reasons. By day 30 or so I had managed to work around most of the things I didn't like.
Once the dust settled around 8.1 I updated. It has been quite a while now ... I can honestly say that this is my best Windows experience ever. And my first experience was when Windows was a program launcher.
8.1 made it so I almost never see anything than even resembles Metro. And performance-wise, my PC screams.
You have to do what you're comfortable with, but 8.1 really is an improvement over 8. You may not end up liking it better than 8, but I doubt seriously you'll like it less!!