I think WinMobile is a shrunken windows and probably to make its adaptation easier and make it resemble windows for desktop so many unwanted things are included in the mobile OS.
I would like to say that 'START' button should simply be done away with and home screen should contain big finger-friendly icons for programs so that user does not need to tap on programs menu first to open the programs window. All other mobile OS seem to follow this approach, windows mobile does not need to be different on this.