The problem is that you cannot escape completely. A major point is that some settings are available only from the Modern UI, some are only available from the desktop, some are there on both. But the transitions are well-hidden most of the time. Not that most users (me included) need to frequently access settings (I'm on the same stance with UAC since Vista: It's not an annoyance beyond the first day of setting up a machine), but the lack of communication where something can be found is pretty annoying at times.

I understand that time and budget constraints make it hard to offer both in either mode, but that's definitely an area to improve.