I'm sure this is true for lots of people, but for the specific case of someone that is running Windows on a non-touch device that multitasks, Windows 8 is only faster for people who somehow work slower when in the presence of odd numbers.
Also, anyone who loads more than a few programs quickly finds themselves in chicklet-hell.
Objectively, and I'm not the only person who has performed this analysis, Windows 7's interface is far more transparent. From a human interface design perspective, Windows 8 forces users to figure out and learn a lot more than Windows 7 does. Sure, you can argue that "once you learn" all its nuances it might be as fast or faster, but that's not the correct way to judge the useability of a UI. The way to judge a UI is to see how difficult it is for someone to figure out how to make it work, and on that score I've seen and taught people both interfaces: Windows 8 loses and loses big.
At any given time on my PC I'm running Windows Media Center (yes, it's my main DVR hooked up with an HD Homerun) and running multiple browsers, each with multiple tabs (I use a seperate browser each for work and personal browsing) and can be running any portion of Adobe Creative suite or running PC games including graphics intensive MMOs, as well as my music player. I never have any problem finding what I want. Alt tab to the window of the app/program I want, and it pops up, just like I do in Windows 7. Want to find an app I don't have open? Just swipe my mouse down from the top right corner and the search bar pops up for me just as fast if not faster than having to click the start tab in Windows 7. By the way, this is on a far from high end machine. I'm running and i5 processor with 8 gigs of ram and and GTX 550 video processor. Not low end, but definitely not high end.
Arcana, what shortcuts or pathways are you using in windows 7 that have been taken away in Windows 8? Honestly, at home I use Windows 8, at work I use Windows 7, and I really don't see ANY functional difference once I got the 8.1 update and had the ability for it to boot right to the desktop, avoiding the metro interface altogether.
I'm wondering, are you relying mostly on the built in "apps" via the metro interface, or using the actual stand alone programs like you would in Windows 7? Maybe that's the issue. I don't use -any- of the built in apps via the app store or metro interface because they are, by design, bulky and take over the full screen, like you'd see on a tablet, etc. But those are easily avoided if you're using Windows 8 on a PC. As a matter of fact, I NEVER even see the metro interface on my home PC. I boot to the desktop by default and every program I use is one I've installed myself, the same way I would on any other PC. I don't even know what the market interface looks like on Windows 8 PCs, honestly.
Could that be the cause of your frustration?