As for skydrive.. HANDY shit! I use it and find it very convenient. I can access it from any PC via the web and get files I need. I just don't store personal info there.
I like it as well, handy as hell.
Have you actually looked/tried outlook.com?
I use Outlook that is part of MS Office. I like it fine and it handles my gmail, yahoo, comcast, live, and AOL emails all in one place.
Kona, I believe the setup we are talking about has to be either an MS Account, or a local account, which requires no email.
Phoon, I recently purchased a Windows 8 phone as well. Still getting used to it. It does things that my android doesn't, but the android does things that the windows phone doesn't. Not sure where I am on that topic as of yet.