Uh huh. So, I take it then you've actually built a Windows desktop application that was popular / important enough that you had to do all of the following on a startup / small-business budget:
1. Installers that have to cover three versions of Windows, two hardware architectures (x86, x64), and thousands of different localization permutations.
2. Deal with piracy, cracking, and malware-ified version of your own company's desktop applications.
3. UI design in C/C++ that didn't look like absolute shit. Oh, and let's go ahead and throw foreign language localization into the mix too (German words are looooooong)
4. Company-defined security policies / UAC / third party virus scanning technology that can interfere with the install process in ways you couldn't even imagine.
5. Bad images and weird registry issues caused by things that are largely out of your control, but you have to account for anyway.
The only item on that list Metro forces me to deal with (if I want to) is localization, which is 10000x easier to do in HTML5/JS or C#/XAML than it ever was in C.
If all of those things seem simple to you, I'm calling bullshit.
3: Desktop application != C++ application. C#/WinForms, C#/WPF are desktop applications as well. But yeah, developing decent UI in MFC is quite a bit of pain. Although, you could take some shortcuts with implementing UI with HTML/js, loading them from resources. I did that once, it is possible. Localization is a solved problem for both native and .NET.
4: So? Company policies and UAC doesn't go anywhere with Store. Antiviruses - yeah, those are more painful for regular software.
5: Applies to Store too. If something is wrong with customer's PC, it will be wrong regardless of your path of distribution.
Look, software is never simple (unless we're talking about fart apps), but the Store is not some kind of unicorn that alleviates all problems. Yes, certain things will be simpler, but usually the bigger problem is marketing and promotion and for its costs and risks of rejections/removals Store just not worth it.
I guess the point I'm trying to make is that technical difficulties during "traditional"desktop development are, while real, more of a red herring with app stores: the main problem is sales and Store doesn't really solve it.
1. Installers that have to cover three versions of Windows, two hardware architectures (x86, x64), and thousands of different localization permutations.
2. Deal with piracy, cracking, and malware-ified version of your own company's desktop applications.
3. UI design in C/C++ that didn't look like absolute shit. Oh, and let's go ahead and throw foreign language localization into the mix too (German words are looooooong)
4. Company-defined security policies / UAC / third party virus scanning technology that can interfere with the install process in ways you couldn't even imagine.
5. Bad images and weird registry issues caused by things that are largely out of your control, but you have to account for anyway.
The only item on that list Metro forces me to deal with (if I want to) is localization, which is 10000x easier to do in HTML5/JS or C#/XAML than it ever was in C.
If all of those things seem simple to you, I'm calling bullshit.