Like it or not Windows 8 is an awesome piece of kit, Once you can get the hang of it,it may help with the next generation of phones (IE Windows phone) Et al.
I still use XP offline for all the things you can do with it (that i am used to doing with it) As mentioned some old favourites do not run on the new systems. And files and data are easily transfered via memory sticks etc.
I have one PC for everything online and 2 other systems for other things i like to do. After all there is only so much memory.And if my online PC becomes corrupted i dont lose all the data.And reset via a hard disc manager is easy enough.