I just recall that it wasn’t well received on its roll out. I got burned with Vista and hope to avoid a similar situation.
If I buy one installed with Win 8, is it a big deal to have someone install Win 7 in its place?
Vista was a dog. The reason they were able to get Win 7 out when they realized how badly they'd damaged their reputation with Vista is that it was heavily based on Windows Server 2008, which was industrial strength.