Intuitive User Interfaces do not have to make sense

Disclaimer: This is not a defense of Windows 8. I am just using it as an example. I am not a Microsoft employee although I do use Microsoft technologies in my software development. I may be biased in some regard but I hope my views come out in an objective nature.

User interface and experience design is a tough and tricky situation these days. It seemed like everyone readily knew that in order to operate your desktop, laptop, smartphone and even refrigerator, all you had to do was use the obvious iconography along with menu systems arrayed across the edge of the display. And then Microsoft had to come along and screw it all up.
One of the biggest complaints Microsoft's Windows 8 receives is that it is "unintuitive". It is unintuitive because static icons are missing. It is unintuitive because the Start Menu is gone. And it is unintuitive because nobody would know, without some training of any kind, that the charms bar exists, or all installed applications can be found with 2-3 clicks, or any number of other little gripes one may have. And when asked why it's unintuitive, chances are its because it "doesn't make sense...".

Common Sense is limited by what the person knows
I could go on a large rant that would take up the rest of my day on what a fallacy the notion of Common Sense is. Common Sense said the Indians were just on the other side of that large ocean. Common Sense tells us all the time that the shorter line at the grocery store is the faster line (and we all know that isn't true). And Common Sense said that if this woman weighs the same as a duck, she's made of wood and therefore...A WITCH!
The problem with it is that we don't know everything but accept the little that we do as being accepted and truth. This sort of notion plagues American politics and economics today. In our disastrous two-party system, both sides claim to have Common Sense while the other is stupid and uneducated. And yet neither have proven to actually have a positive affect. But this isn't a political rant.
The other major problem with Common Sense is that it's limited to what we're used to.

Intuitive User Interfaces do not have to make sense
Microsoft's Windows 8 has certainly had it's critics. And largely for good reason. As an owner of 3 PC's, all with Windows 8 and only one with a touch screen, I can say that I whole-heartedly prefer the touch screen over mouse and keyboard. And that was what it was made for. Swiping the edges with a mouse doesn't feel or work as well as intended. Navigating the "Metro" (and yes, I'm still calling it that as well) Start Screen doesn't work as well with a mouse and keyboard as it does with a simple swipe.
I use it well enough; hot keys and mouse wheels play heavily in my usage. The average user base, of which I am not, may not be that savvy though.
But one of the most interesting solutions to this is to put back the start menu from Windows 7 and older versions. Again, we are limited to what we know when it comes to Common Sense, but this doesn't make sense to me. Maybe I'm missing a piece of the puzzle as to why a small menu in the corner and a full screen menu that achieves the nearly exact functionality is so vastly different and inhibiting.
I get that there isn't a tutorial on right-clicking the start screen and then clicking the All Apps icon in the corner that achieves the same action as clicking the Start Menu and scrolling to the Programs tab from previous OS's. That's cool and I appreciate it. But once you learn that, and know its practically the same thing outside of presentation, does it still seem unintuitive?
Or how about no tacit knowledge that in the Start Screen, you can start typing and it automatically searches your installed applications? Such as "Ste" will display Steam for all the gamers out there. That is, if you hadn't already pinned the application executable to your Start Screen.

Time to bring it all in
Merely because it doesn't look like the user interface which we have learned to use doesn't mean it is "unintuitive". PC users using a Mac for the first time will complain of unintuitiveness and may be lost. No Windows key for hot keys? Where's the Start Menu...oh, its the Application drop down that takes you to a folder with all of your applications installed. But it takes some getting used to and education in order to become a productive user.
So why is Windows 8 so "unintuitive" then? And why doesn't it make sense? If we can learn to use an iPhone, switch from PC to Mac or vice versa, be enthralled with the Kinect, create the automobile and expand our society to fit roads, realize that yes we do revolve around the sun and generally accept that the morons on the other side of the aisle are bent on destroying the USA, why is it such a brain numbing, productivity destroying failure to change the game of OS design?


I wish I had more time to dive into this more as I know I left things out and wanted to expand on more. Would love to discuss it with anybody in the comments. Thanks!