I like Windows' console subsystem, but I would like to see built-in support for backquotes. 'Cause this:
set hostname=`hostname`
is easier than this:
for /f %i in ('hostname') do @set hostname=%i
Obviously, hostname is a bad example, but it was simple. Hmmm. [browsing platform SDK] Looks like attaching to a console and preprocessing its input buffer is pretty simple. Time to play. . . .
Apart from [legally] recompiling the kernel, there's not much you can do in Linux that you can't do in Windows. So really, it all boils down to how much of your skill set matches up with the operating system's out-of-the-box features.
Trev