Live tiles are not a replacement for a notification centre at all, it is silly to think it will be. Simply because not everyone has their hands glued to their phones 24/7. If you miss a notification, you wont even know unless you hunted for it and even worse if its not pinned to your home screen it is gone. Also what on earth possessed them (MS) to think clear the notification counter if you opened the app was a smart idea? I.e if you receive 6 emails and open 3 therefore 3 unread the tile should indicate 3 unread not clear it off completely.
Microsoft needs to stop trying to be a parent deciding what we users need or don't need. For example, the stop button why was that removed? The functionality is there since there all these stopmusic apps in the store, such a basic thing but its a nuisance to have an app pinned to do a simple task. More over users had to use a work around - opening a video to remove the now playing control, which was just absurd. Also I have found the battery drain is actually higher with the music paused as opposed to stopped. We need the ability to troubleshoot bluetooth problems via adjustable settings, profiles etc there have been times when I have not been able to connect via bluetooth to my friends' car audio systems with no way to troubleshoot (which was pretty embarrassing to say the least imagine a car full of isheep :angry: - so now I carry an aux cable in my backpack and my coat pockets). We need more than just colours for tiles, If they enabled us to have custom backgrounds for our tiles, ability to change the colour of the logos and text for system apps - this would make windows phone more personal. Only then their vision / motto "We didn't design windows phone for all us, but each of us", would ring true. Speaking of tiles, may be give us an option (off by default) to turn off auto alignment? I have so many ideas in mind but it is a pain playing around with black empty tile shortcuts created with skinnery themes as they try to open but close automatically since they are not set to anything.
Bing Search needs to be improved drastically for us international users, the bing panaroma feature is amazing with the recommendation, reviews for movies, movie times etc which you only get if you change your browser / search region to US. Also sort by distance, show opening times is disabled in local scout unless you change your browser / search region to US...
Office mobile needs alot of work, I shouldn't have to resort to work arounds it should just work i.e. using full stops as bullet points. Can only attach documents in the office hub, videos only from the photos hub and only pictures from the an email hub. Once a document is attached via the office hub, it defaults to the pictures hub with no way to change it or navigate back. So you have to upload all documents or videos to sky drive and share that way, it works but a annoyance none the less or send them one by one....
However there are areas MS nailed it, customisable lock screen, kids corner (however camera roll is still accessible and really needs a setting to set a separate password), amazingly fluid UI etc. They have a strong foundation now but there is a lot of work still left to be done before WP can surpass android or ios.
Sorry for the long rant, brain is on over drive at the moment.. had too many energy drinks.