[drbanks]

Ok, everyone's had their rants out. But surely, there's a positive for even the most negative of users?

Mine:

Swipe keyboard is a win
Finally, the notification center lets me see the fleeting notifications that I missed while trying to dig the phone out from under wherever it was
I actually like the updates to the status bar and the split volume control
Apps on SD. More importantly, app private data ("Other storage") on SD

To me, even though the not-so-good parts completely screwed up my workflow, I still feel very positive about the update.

[tk-093]

Word Flow Keyboard
Action Center
Cortana
Geofencing (part of Cortana)
XBox Music App (I'd been using that since the preview got released months ago. The music+video hub was horrid.. couldn't make playlist...just horrid.)
Download files in IE11
Extra column of tiles.. oh yeah extra column baby!
Better Gmail support (I have a shared calendar I have to sync.... not by choice!)

[blackmagic1]

Volume control for sure

[cannon#WP]

I've got my negative out. Instead of listing the big things, I'll list the small things I do like:

Maps app is back! I never use HERE Maps and was disappointed when they hid the Maps app. I used the "app" from the store that restored the shortcut, but it's nice to see MS officially put it back.

DataSense for all! ...or at least until the official 8.1 update comes and it's removed due to carriers mucking everything up.

Facebook pictures are larger in the People hub feed! I've already ranted about the FB dis-integration but this is a nice touch.

Unlimited background task! Now I don't have to kick an app out of my pool of 15 background tasks.

Bing Rewards sighting! If you go into Settings -> applications -> search and scroll all the way down, you'll see "View my Bing Rewards info". Hopefully this means Bing Rewards is coming to WP sooner than later.

I agree with you drbanks. They're moving in the right direction, they just need to combine what was working well in 8 that they removed with the improvements of 8.1.