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It really wouldn't have been difficult for Microsoft to check orientation and enable/disable Cleartype. Or atleast enable Cleartype in x86/PCs & disable it on ARM/tablets.

This is essential, because at least at the beginning most users will be using Windows 8 on a desktop/laptop, which will all be used in a single orientation. Also, most of these users will have already gotten used to the sharp text in Windows 7, and will see Windows 8 text rendering as a step back.

Haha.. I was going to post the same reply as yours and the ones below. There's no difficulty (beyond some switch statements) to have the ClearType work in any orientation. Admittedly, whatever the 90-degree-off 'sideways' orientation is would have the smoothing applied vertically on the font instead of horizontally, but that would still be better than none, and for the 2 'normal' orientations it would work just like it has for years.

And, for that matter, my WinMo 6.5 phone could do:

R
G
B

as well as:

B
G
R

and, of course, RGB and BGR.

So, no excuse, MS.

No, you nincompoop. Windows 8 & metro is for desktops, laptops, and tablets. I'm not rotating my screen on my laptop, why should I suffer?

Also, you make the DPI retina display levels for the tablet and you aren't going to notice any issue with cleartype. I mean, you would expect MS win 8 arm tablets to try and compete with the ipad, right?

Because some of us do rotate our screen.

One of the two displays for my Desktop has a ring mount so I can rotate it in either direction. It comes in very useful for read PDFs (legal size formatted mostly, but even letter size fit the screen better) and camera pictures where I am photographing tall structures (ie hold the camera on it's side).

As for my laptop (1600*900 screen), sitting on it's side again makes most PDFs easier to read, just plug in a mouse, set your reader to rotate 90 degrees and scroll thru the document with the wheel.