seriously? what's so hard going to options:
you have all the options here, pick you poison. For me strong account password is a must since it's online account, but if I work at home i stick to picture pass for sake of more convenient access, knowing that my online account has proper protection. And indeed you can just as well stick to 4 digit password if you like.
There are a couple of things to remember:
1. Most end users will not spend their time on forums and are not necessarily tech savvy so something that is easy for you and I isn't easy for everyone. They expect it to work out of the box.
2. Usability is one of the most important aspects of consumer devices. The sole reason iOS gained so much market share when it came out was because the other manufacturers were focussed on features and not on usability. They released a watered down feature set with far better usability and gained a massive market share as a result.
3. When it comes to tablet devices, users expect them to work out of the box. They don't want to install things, change settings or anything else, their first impressions start when they log onto the device for the first time so if you provide them with something that is more cumbersome, their first reaction is "This device is crap" not "What can I do to fix this". If you have a combination login (alphanumeric), the on screen keyboard is extremely cumbersome and time consuming to log in, and as I mentioned in my initial post, almost every non-tech savvy person I have come across with the surface wasn't even aware that there was a 4 digit password option, so they didn't even know to go looking in settings. Some even wanted to switch off the password because they found it so annoying and weren't aware of the easier option.
If Microsoft want to play in this area of the market and show they are serious, they have to provide a user experience that is comparable to the other devices on the market and most of those walk you through a process of setting up your device which includes the Pin. That's a simple reality of the market. It's something that's easy to change. The competitors invest an incredible amount into usability testing and improvements, and the whole purpose of Windows 10 is about improving usability.