It was clear to see that the purpose of foisting UEFI, TPM, and Microsoft SecureBoot, accompanied by GPT drive partitioning, simultaneously on consumers with the launch of Windows 8.0, was to inhibit the installation and use of alternate operating systems.

From that point, new PC buyers would not be able to simply and directly install some other OS other than Windows 8 (or newer Windows) on the PC without four different unfamiliar workarounds, for those four obstacles, which were implemented differently on different motherboards. Even though UEFI was touted as ideal because there were published standards that traditional BIOS never had, we all know in practice that BIOS motherboards were more consistent among vendors and price points than UEFI motherboards anyway.

Linux was ominously on the brink of doubling its user share (which still wouldn't have been very significant), but especially it was Windows 7 which was the real threat to adoption of Windows 8.

Nothing more, nothing less.

As we now see, the touted improvement in "security" was a joke the whole time.

Definitely not as secure as a business-class non-UEFI late Windows 7 Professional PC's motherboard.

Not like there's any question.