Upgrading to Windows 10 removes an existing installation of WMC, which is different to WMP of course.
At least one person around here who has used the patched version of WMC installed on Windows 10 found that it had at least one non-starter/shop-stopper limitation. I don't recall what that was.
Bahamas, all new software has a learning curve, and all old software feels familiar and correct, once you have learned to live with or overcome its idiosyncrasies. WMC was no different.
1. I installed MC and started using it immediately. It didn't start in Theatre View, the 10' interface, but that made sense, given the way it works. There is a basic
"Getting Started" article in the Wiki, which is linked to in the "Start" screen you mentioned. With MC and JRiver, it is necessary to search and use the Wiki and forums, as that is where the knowledge is.
2. MC looks pretty good, and is very configurable to change its look, although not as much as Kodi. (Form over function, or function over form?) It is very easy to navigate with an MCE remote.
3. No software is absolutely robust, and JRiver's development philosophy of continual improvement with many releases all year means that the latest release may have some issue. As long as you chose to use the Stable versions, as per the Update Channel in MC, then you should have few problems, if any. (I don't understand that last statement either.
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4. TV is very well integrated, and has been improved enormously in he last year or two. Controls, once you learn them, are consistent and therefore intuitive, particularly in the 10' Theatre View.
As a WMC refugee you have been spoiled by Microsoft for many years, as they have provided a free, curated EPG since 2005. Most EPG data is not free, and never has been, particularly for a commercial, paid for application. People who do provide free EPG data do not like commercial vendors to use their data. In fact, they do not allow it. That being said, MC supports multiple EPG sources, and the Microsoft source is one of them. It seems to be having more and more problems though, and JRiver has no control over that. MC uses an integrated third party tool, mc2xml, to collect the Microsoft data, which is actually sourced from Rovi. I personally use the free OTA EPG data provided by the broadcasters here in Australia, and use the free software "EPG Collector" to collect the data, which MC then imports via the XMLTV file method.
The completeness of any EPG data is entirely up to the source, and JRiver have no control over that at all. Microsoft used to have some control with Grace, before they moved to Rovi last year, but that is only because of their size. They don't seem to have the same control with Rovi, and don't seem to be trying to exert it either. EPG sources, quality, and completeness vary all over the world. Europe vs North America vs Australia vs South America, etc., they all have similar issues, and different solutions. Which is why collecting good EPG data has typically been complex, unreliable, and involved some level of intellectual property theft via scraping commercial web sites.
The annual cost of commercial EPG data from the likes of PercData ( the commercial version of Schedules Direct, which costs about the same anyway) is equivalent to the cost of annual MC upgrades.
EPG provision was rarely ever easy, with WMC (because Microsoft did it all for you, free) and a few other applications that no longer exist for new purchases (i.e. the business model wasn't sustainable), have been the only exceptions. So, MC is about as good as it is going to get, into the future. Unless you want to use an Xbox One for your TV needs.
5. JRiver has been around for a long time, and the software is incrementally evolved, rather than rebuilt and released at discrete times. As mentioned above, as long as you chose to use the Stable versions, as per the Update Channel in MC, then you should have few problems, if any.
6. As someone who has had to do that to some extent for commercial applications, that is a really, really big ask. For consumer applications it is even more difficult, as subjective requirements come into the picture. Inevitably, user hit up against something they want different from the shoe0in approach, and often it is a show stopper for them. Unless of course you do a Steve Jobs, and just build it how you want it, and tell everyone that is how it is, providing no choice.
In summary: MC is a bit geeky. You don't have to be a fanboi, but there is a learning curve. However, you can start using it as soon as you install it, and then improve it from there. At least I did.
