'd rather pirate Windows 7 and get (almost) anything the way I want it. 3 minutes of tweaking (Always show file extensions, taskbar like previous versions, disable sticky keys, etc.) and it's just what I need and want.
Why, why is this still and issue? Are you using a Pentium 4 with 512MB of RAM? Otherwise I can't comprehend how on earth you would claim any OS to be "resource intensive." There's no such thing in 2015
I fully understand what you are saying. At home I run Windows 7 on a fx-8150 with 16GB of RAM and SSD drives. I run windows 7 at home because I don't want to fuck with linux at home since I do all day at work. When I get home I want to turn my computer on, it work and it just work.
Yes, in 2015 there are still resource issues. At work I use a laptop with a dual core 1.7ghz processor and 4Gb of RAM. Any thing that wastes resources, like a over bloated gui, isn't welcomed in that environment.
But I do understand what you are saying. For the most part even a POS walmart computer is more than enough computer for what they need. But then you do have people, like me, that push their hardware to the limits. That might be video rendering, managing a ass load of virtual machines, or just playing games with the setting maxed out. Any bit of processing power that is not attributed to that purpose is a waste.