I prefer the start screen to desktop shortcuts because, since it’s really a popup menu of sorts, you can bring it up and (single-)click to open up a window on top of your existing window configuration without disturbing that. With desktop shortcuts, even if you use the Win-D shortcut, when you double-click on an icon it forgets your previous window configuration, so you have to manually restore everything. Another thing I like to do with the start screen is keep groups of shortcuts to folders and apps associated with activities or projects I’m working on. I can keep those groups off to the right most of the time, then easily move a whole group to the first page when I know I’ll be working on that for a while.