8.1 looks like 10. The problem is hardware support, 8.1 is the unloved child when it comes to drivers, all you can really do is investigate for yourself.
I am going to blow my own trumpet, i can tweak anything given time and i dont need windows to get online. Ive whipped LTSC's arse on everything except telemetry, actually i have, i airgapped it and shutdown all the services it needs to get online, ive not really mastered telemetry, ive just taken it out of the equation. I am considsering going laptops only, less space, easier to move. I know what that means, w10 but hopefully 1809.
It all boils down to driver support, if you pop over to win-raid and see the amount of work people are doing to keep xp alive, i couldnt do that. Tweaking i can.
I cant really contribute to liting anymore or help in the forum because stuff ie either beyond my knowledge or that most days my brain only runs on 1 maybe 2 cylinders, 4 on rare occasion. I have forgotten a lot of stuff and lost a lot of work to.
Really great tweaks carry over from os to os and from build to build with 10, they just may need a few changes. Nuhi has a free hand to use any he likes.
Have you considered mac/hackintosh?