I'm inclined to agree with him, and I have Windows 8. There is no reason for these features to be exclusive to Windows 8.1 other than for marketing or promotion..
Yup. Microsoft should be trying to strengthen its products and build customer confidence after their definite mis-step with Win8.
Instead, they've done this, and they're trying to gouge customers' wallets with their new Office licencing. My jaw dropped when a customer told me that they were sold Office 365 for ~£80 for a single year (albeit 5-user) subscription, when it used to be ~£85 for Home & Student retail licence 3-user licence which was also transferable. When I informed her that it was for a single year, she opted for LibreOffice (as the MSO packaging was still sealed and she can probably get a refund).
If MS is looking to close down their business and end with the worst possible reputation (factor in their mis-steps with XBox game licencing), they're going the right way about it.
The only noteworthy improvements they've made are to reverse some of their most serious mis-steps (another being their decision not to release IE10 for Win7).
They should be bug-fixing Windows, reversing some of the stupid decisions they've made wrt Metro and pretending that desktops/laptops are the same as tablets, bringing in some under-the-bonnet improvements, reinstating the Win7 Explorer UI and refining it, and doing some serious investment in improving DirectX so hardware running games using DirectX are always at the top in performance and reliability terms. More competitors are coming into the 'expensive gaming market' (ie. expensive consoles and computers), and they need to be ready for that. The last thing they need right now is for a competitor (say Apple or some Steam Linux box) to show the same game on the same hardware and settings running better than on Windows/Xbox.
They should also be improving DirectX in ways that encourage developers to not just produce console ports. Investing in DirectX is good for both their Xbox and PC gaming platforms.