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Namely the inability to do business without going through MS. Even if Steam can be distributed through Windows Store, can it still perform transactions without giving any money to MS, implement its own DRM scheme, and load 3rd party executables (i.e. the games downloaded)?

In addition, though Win32 apps can be distributed through the Windows Store, this does nothing for the many apps that are no longer in active development, including older versions of applications preferred by some users. Any apps that go against Windows Store policies won't be available, which includes many useful utilities, emulators... and I guess doing software development is out of the question here as well.

I really want to love Borderlands 2 but each and every expansion they've offered is the same story treadmill with it's own brand new currency (Eridium, Torgue Tokens, Seraph Crystals... because the in game money isn't good enough?) and blanket template that were farmed out to another company just to kick out content. None of them so far have equated to the fun I had with General Knoxx or Dr. Ned's.

I truly feel ripped off with the season pass purchase and it will be a hard sell to get me to buy into BL3.

Better...at what? The mouse is good for one thing: precisely pointing at things in a two dimensional space. And the keyboard is good at one thing: offering a multitude of distinct binary inputs. Those are pretty versatile abilities, so they do work for a variety of games, but that doesn't mean that they are necessarily ideal, and the list of genres that can't fit neatly into those input models is longer than you seemed to imply.

Granted, they're ideal for some genres. For instance, many MMOs provide a multitude of distinct actions to the player, and a keyboard or MMO-oriented mouse is ideal for that. Strategy games similarly offer a multitude of buttons to press, on-screen items to interact with, and things to click on, so the combo shines there. The ability to band box precisely and quickly also makes the mouse great in real-time strategy.

But for a racing game or flight sim, the combo falls far short. Similarly, for fighting games it's all but unusuable. Most sports games would be difficult or impossible to play well. Top-down shooters using a mouse are clumsy and awkward when compared to comparable twin-stick shooters. Many platformers, side scrollers, and RPGs, while they do work on PC, are better served by a controller, since they only have a small handful of distinct actions at any time and lack the need for precisely selecting an on-screen object, making the mouse and keyboard massive overkill for their needs.

Even with first person shooters, nearly always the example of why the mouse and keyboard combo is better, I'd argue that it's still not the best. Granted, it's far better than a traditional controller, and they were definitely the best option available for a number of years, but a mouse adds a virtual divide between the player and the target they're aiming at. You're not physically aiming at your target. Rather, based on feel and the game's visual responses to your movements, you're moving a reticle in-game until it lands over a target. That works, but it's not ideal.

Something that allows actual aiming at a target is better, such as a light gun or Wiimote. Granted, the light gun has other drawbacks (a lack of way to move the player, for one), and the Wiimote is an early iteration on a technology that still has some issues (response time, precision, etc.), but having played shooters on the PC for years, I was blown away by using the Wiimote with Metroid Prime. It, to me, felt like the direction that first person shooters should be going. I was actually shooting at my enemies, and while it took some adjusting, it was much more natural and enjoyable than the mouse.

So, as a general input device combo, the mouse and keyboard is great. Controllers aren't likely to replace that anytime soon. But as an ideal input method, the mouse and keyboard combo is really only the best pick for a small handful of genres.

Perhaps this is explainable, in the fact that David Kotkin and Paul Christoforo are 'bros' in real life. A bit of internet sleuthing reveals that the two run a business together in Miami called Afternoon Artists Inc. The relationship is hardly as innocuous as they would have any of us believe.
It would seem that Christoforo's own apology (via the previous Kotaku link), and Kotkin's decision to drop him come after the fact that he had been called out for his callousness, rather than from any actual sense of remorse.

Customer who dealt with Paul during the first half of the year:
http://www.natesnetwork.com/Poor-customer-service

Perhaps this is explainable, in the fact that David Kotkin and Paul Christoforo are 'bros' in real life. A bit of internet sleuthing reveals that the two run a business together in Miami called Afternoon Artists Inc. The relationship is hardly as innocuous as they would have any of us believe.

Jesus...here we go again.

Mouse and kb is the better combination for FPS. Period. That's why you don't see cross-platform servers where PC and console gamers are allowed to play against each other. Microsoft tested it with the best of the best console players against some mediocre PC players...sur-fucking-prise: The PC players dominated the Y-Axis-challeneged consoler players. You simply can't argue against and it if you do you'll look like a moron. I could easily dig up more examples but you have the same internet I do...look it up yourself.

Now, if I got on a console with a controller and played against you? I'd have my ass handed to me. But I've been playing PC games since '96 and I simply refuse to change. I'm too old to get good with a controller and frankly, just don't care. But if MS decided to allow a mouse/kb on some of their Xbox games, then I guranantee that I would start buying more console releases. There just arent enough people like me to make it worth MS while, plus that might take away sales of some PC's with Windows; why buy a PC when I can get a console with a mouse and kb?

BTW, I wouldn't play Halo even if I could use a mouse and kb. When it came out I was already 5 or 6 years into FPS games and it simply didn't have the wow-factor for me that it did for the younger generation. I played through the first one and quickly went back to Quake 3...a game that had been released 2 year prior but was a gajillion times better.