Is the lack of a stylus a big deal when using a Windows 8 tablet? I am trying to imagine running applications in the classic desktop and I would think a finger would just be too big to hit any of the controls with any type of precision.
Does the included version of Office run as a Metro app or does it run on the classic desktop?
Not if using the entire touchscreen as a trackpad.
There is a free software that can do this. TouchMousePointer.
On my Acer Icona W3 810, while I was to manipulate things directly one to one with my fingers in the desktop, under 150% scaling, I have resorted to TouchMousePointer for a few things. The screen, because it is like the resistive feel of past Tablet PCs, made me leverage this option more than on my Surface Pro and Pro 2.
For office work on a small device, the discrepancy lies in document input and feedback in viewing your entered text/numbers. The on-screen keyboard (the split thumb one is easily the best option) is doable.
With caveats...
With the desktop Office and how in the desktop areas, the on-screen keyboard does not deploy automatically like in Modern apps, one has to click or poke the keyboard icon to bring the keyboard manually. This also can obscure a good portion of the widescreen aspect ratio of the already. This can be alieviated, using the "Screen split" icon next to the close icon of the virtual keyboard, which would tile the keyboard and all of the working space of the desktop. I have resorted to this for very short text input without having to place my device down or find a table or place to sit. Granted, for intense text and number entry, you will need a dock or external keyboard no matter what the device is.
The pen, by default in many user's eyes, is the default go to solution. This is been long existent in the Tablet PC realm. With this option, you can input text and numbers by the OCR handwriting keyboard which works well enough - and works as well enough given deployed circumstances. This is not for long essays however, short text input and sentences is what I found this being viable. You can also use this to point at things.
The biggest difference in the pen and trackpad, is the pen eliminates the small but noticable over time, drag, sliding, and zeroing-to-the-target time of the trackpad. It also allows for a much finer manipulation of dense, small UI. Which is another trade-off in device size to function and computational power.
These are the current (in my analysis) drawbacks of having the input sharing the screen with the output. This applies (again) no matter what the device. With Modern app paradigms that Microsoft has set to take, they make use of things being hidden when not being in use, like any mobile device there is.
Of course, if using the device in a portrait mode, the 16:9 16:10 aspect ratio makes much more sense. It gives plenty of vertical room to have the keyboard and have your feedback visual output at the same time. It brings the visual area more in line as with the 4:3 aspects.
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