Yep
It's not that stuff is broken in a public beta that is to be expected it's that they actually INTEND these bad design features to be their once released.
It's really scary and makes me very leary of the direction of Win 10 for tablets whihc is silly cause all they had to do was port over the Win 8.1 gui and make a few adjustments.
Precisely, it is their intention or direction that is the worrying part. It's is inconsequential that this is just a beta, it is their intention that is the problem here. Look at their continuum concept video to see what that direction is. Indeed an always visible taskbar, indeed no choice in start experience.
That xaml start screen is a perfect example, they will never make it ideal for both desktop users and tablet users, just as the start screen in Windows 8 meant a compromise. I personally liked it on the desktop as well, but can understand others don't. This new one will divide people in pretty much the same way.
It boggles the mind that this time around they are trying the exact same thing as with Windows 8, force a single start experience on everyone. Yes now they allow resizing, but it will not be ideal for both paradigms, simply because screen size and input methods are vastly different.
At first they showed they finally understood by offering two distinct start experiences in early preview builds, but they have changed their mind and rerunning the Windows 8 way of things.
I agree with you, ALL they really have to do to make 10 great on both tablets and desktops is disabling the 8.1 stuff on the desktop and replace it with desktop logic stuff whilst re-using the 8.1 stuff in tablet mode, as 8.1 had the tablet covered like no other operating system on the planet.
Unfortunately, this is not going to happen and I am afraid that this won't change regardless of any feedback, they have already made up their mind.