They started 'replacing' the control panel with the release of w8 lol. Just 15 years to do one task. I wish I could do two tasks, take 30 years, then get a fat bonus + 401k on my way out the door, laughing the whole way.
Maybe it's just an agreement with all the windows devs that they will do fuck-all to force the user shift we are seeing now. Upper management has no clue and everyone is in agreement with things like 'putting the taskbar back on the top edge is going to require 5 years and 2m R&D' 'understandable, whatever it takes'.