A friend on facebook asked what was everyone's thoughts on Windows 10, and after going through a list of pros and cons, I mentioned that since Windows 8, I hardly ever use the start menu, even when running Start 8 I never used it beyond going through the program list and pinning the ones I used or using the search. With the addition of Cortana, or with Voice command in any OS, you can get a lot more traction without ever clicking anything.

I tell Cortana, Google Now, or Siri to open an app ...and it's done and I can go a lot further in interacting with my computer with voice command than I could with a  and traditional start menu. With this I realized I hated the new start menu and the one in 7 and 8, why...because they have a diminished reliance within the windows 10 ecosystem. And, less importantly Windows really needs to stop trying to make fetch happen(modern UI tiles) and move forward, focusing on something they've been working on since at least Windows XP. RIP Clippy, Dog Search, and Voice Command. 

My suggestion then is seen in this imagine below .. Cortana, not really removing features of the start menu other than the titles(I think cards are better anyways, both in google now and windows), but Cortana doesn't take second stage to the start menu, it integrates the two. This i imagine is a condensed view, without titles. "Cortana menu", with the Action Center makes 10 an improved desktop, and I can't imagine it taking away from tablets either.