With Microsoft making available the final released to manufacturing (RTM) Windows 8 bits to some customers starting on August 15, it's a good time to contemplate whether it's worth grabbing them. Yes, Windows 8 is a touch-centric operating system which will work best - or, at least, most like the way its designers intended - on touch-enabled tablets, PCs and monitors. But I've heard from several readers that they believe Windows 8 includes enough under-the-hood improvements in security, reliability and performance to convince them it's worth putting on older, non-touch enabled hardware, too. Even without (or despite) the new user interface and touch gesture support, the rest of the OS is a worthy upgrade, some claim. They like the less flashy features, like faster boot times and fewer required restarts after updating.