The new backstage view in Office 2010 was great for a business environment. It showed a long list of recent workbooks and recent folders and so, even working on many workbooks, there was a very good chance that one, or at worst two, clicks would get me to the workbook I needed to work on.
In 2013 this is a whole lot harder as you only see either recent workbooks or recent folders and the lists take up more space so fewer files/folders are visible. Also Skydrive, which I doubt if many businesses would use, is far too prominent and cannot
be removed (?) The list of recent files in the menu bar is too narrow so it is often not possible to distinguish between files with similar names without hovering over and waiting!
Anyway, there is an option, (File/Options/Save) "Don't show the Backstage when opening or saving files". I have tried this option in Word and Excel and it doesn't seem to make any difference, at all. Am I missing something?
Oh BTW as IT manager I am recommending that we do not move to Office 2013. Backstage and color theme are the killers.