I'm down with free-as-in-dollars software, but if 87% of what's in the Windows Store is free, then only 13% (688) are complex and/or good enough that the developers thought they could reasonably charge money for them....
.... productivity mainstays like Photoshop or other essential software? Are you going to buy a Windows 8 system and then find 4,500 free apps and 700 Angry Birds clones?
By this argument all Android software is garbage since it is also free. Only Apple has been able to get users to pay for Apps thus far. Also you are implying people are using their tablets for "serious work" They are $700 facebook machines. Good for taking notes and little else at this point. Would you run photoshop CS5 on an iPad? No you would use the FREE APP to make **** instagram looking pictures.
Contrariwise, why would anybody who needs what Windows RT offers not already have an iPad or Android tablet?
Microsoft Office, installed on every single Win8 tablet, plus easy integration into corporate environments and virtualization support without having to pay licensingfees. iPad is an expensive toy to watch iTunes movies and play angry birds + facebook. Most Android tablets at least have removable storage unlike the iPad. So I take them more seriously than an iPad.
In the end MS tablets will have more useful software on them then for reasons already stated.
....when it's plainly not suitable for desktop use at all.
This comment illustrates that you have not tried Win8. The "metro" start menu is basically the same as the start menu except it fills the entire screen. It is perfectly useable as a desktop OS. People will be butthurt about it for a year or two and then they will be used to it. People were pissed when they went from 3.1 to 95 if you recall. HURR DURR I HAVE TO PRESS START TO SHUT MY COMPUTER OFF!!!!!!
All things considered I will continue using my Android tablets because I do not use them for serious business work. Though I do lust after the surface. If anything I would buy a Surface Pro, but I'm kinda frugal so I probably won't. I will not upgrade my PC's to Win8 until I buy a PC as they work perfectly fine with the OS's they came with. I have some older machines with XP and a couple of laptops with Vista (that work fine as they have 1 gig of ram) and a Windows 7 desktop.