These things are a bit of an oddity...
Touch in windows 8 still sucks even though much of the user interface in Windows 8 (8.1) has been murdered to be "touch friendly", when configuring them you frequently have to head back to desktop applications so you can actually get some things properly configured. Such as networking... In essence, the entire Windows 8.1 shell feels and acts like yet another MS bodge job, massacred by clueless UX developers, further trounced by greedy, clueless marketing department drones and then rushed out half implemented.
It's not helped that, as noted by Steve Knox above, their specifications are just wrong for the price. For rather less money you can get a considerably more useful and powerful laptop which while this sounds daft, from experience most users want a keyboard with their Surface devices which basically means that they instantly turn into under powered, over priced laptops. The staggering inefficiency of the Windows OS and typical Windows applications really doesn't help them as the raw specifications and processing power does exceed competing tablets, but the final result just isn't the same.
As much as I hate the Windows 8 interface on a desktop PC, it does make sense in use on a touchscreen tablet as the interface conforms more to tablet expectations (which are rather different to desktop or server expectations). I'd like to be able to run windows, or at least some windows applications, in a tablet form factor and the business case of multiple users and easy access to files and documents makes a strong case for them compared to iPads (forget it) or Android tablets (much easier, but no corporate control). But again, even Microsoft's flagship application Office is awful on a tablet as the user interface has been massacred - except for the bits that they couldn't be bothered to update of course, these still popup with the same old desktop windows. The result is MS Office on a tablet feels like just another MS Office skin-refresh bodge job with restricted functionality and poor usability therefore users tend to use the desktop version and for that they require a keyboard and mouse. Touch does substitute for a mouse in a lot of situations but pair a keyboard with a tablet and what do you get? Yep, a laptop of sorts...