Not really. It's not Microsoft's fault that people get so damn impatient with things like that. They do that to make sure you know that YOU excecuted that command, not some malware or whatnot. You can turn it off too, but when your computer gets jacked, you'll have no one to blame but yourself.
As for security, it's not bad for basic OS security. Windows Firewall has been vastly improved over the XP Firewall and Windows Defender is pretty good (it's gotten pretty good reviews before).
As for networking, I found it easier to use than XP. Things are displayed and shown very clearly, as where XP you had to know what you were doing or you would screw something up.