I, too, loved Windows 8 and the small Windows tablets from that era. There are dozens of us! It was so cool to have such a tiny device that worked fine as a tablet, then be able to plug a mouse and keyboard and play games on Steam or write music in Ableton or code in the same IDE you'd use at work. Windows 10 was a step backwards in presenting a modern and touch-friendly UI to the user, and Windows 11 is even worse with all the screen real estate wastage from floating menus and rounded corners, plus the useless "recommended" section, ads and widgets.
Since the manufacturers all gave up on the 8" Windows tablet form factor, I think the only path forward is larger but skinnier tablets. Same trend as phones, alas. For a while my main computer was a 10" Lenovo, but now I've bitten the bullet and moved to a 13" Surface Pro. It's a great piece of kit performance-wise and reasonably tough (my screen is smashed up from backpacking/camping, still works) but it still feels less "cool" and cyberpunky than those cheap and cheerful tablets with a full OS on them used to be.
Since the manufacturers all gave up on the 8" Windows tablet form factor, I think the only path forward is larger but skinnier tablets. Same trend as phones, alas. For a while my main computer was a 10" Lenovo, but now I've bitten the bullet and moved to a 13" Surface Pro. It's a great piece of kit performance-wise and reasonably tough (my screen is smashed up from backpacking/camping, still works) but it still feels less "cool" and cyberpunky than those cheap and cheerful tablets with a full OS on them used to be.