believe me, so am I. I sell computers and people around 30 or less seem to have little to no problems with windows 8. people in their 60's or so come to the store and the first thing they say is "I want a computer with windows 7, I've heard windows 8 is bad...". They've never tried windows 8, they just know its bad from tech websites and stuff, websites with *GREAT* reviews like consumer reports and cnet.... (obvious sarcasm).
Seriously though, I just tell people to install programs lke classic shell or start 8 and that it essentially works and functions exactly like windows 7. Seriously though, With the blue update for windows 8 coming out in the summer, MS should definitely consider letting people disable metro for desktops and laptops and put a start button there. The really good thing I see that oems are doing to help is to make laptops touch screen. Already I'm seeing 500-600 laptops with touch screens so once they can get the price down to like 300-400$, which inevitably they will, windows 8 will do fine.
Whenever I sell a windows 8 pc, I HIGHLY recommend people buying a touchscreen laptop or convertible as they really improve the usability. Also remember that old people also complain about the ipad. I'm a MS ****** if anything, but I have to give credit where credit is due and for basic surfing and email, which is what most people do on a computer, the iPad is quite possibly the simplest computer I have ever used in my life. I try to recommend windows 8 tablets as they can do so much more for the same price but iOS is still simpler to use...I mean it has one button.
Just remember that old people always resist change on computers and before windows 8 came out and windows 7 was out, old people were still asking for xp.