I get your perspective. As system admin, I have an appreciation for apps. It forces the developer to play within an ecosystem. He cannot add to the ecosystem by installing his own DLL's etc. Essentially you end up with a more secure and cleaner system. I have several App's that there is not a quick dirty equivalent for in a full windows system, such as Worldcard (Business card OCR) and Fing (Wireless network scanner) to name a couple.
Don't get me wrong, I could never live without a full Windows install.