Hmm, most of what he's talking about there is not windows 8, but the metro interface in windows 8. If you use desktop mode then nearly everything is exactly the same as win 7, but with faster boot etc.
FWIW you close metro apps by dragging top to bottom.
You find programs by hitting the start button and start typing the name of the program, which appears google instant style.
I neither love nor hate win 8, but all the PCs I've put it on are desktops (ie nobody uses the metro interface)