Windows Server 2012 Essentials as Desktop O/S

I will have access to Dreamspark shortly and plan to instal a copy of 2012 Essentials on my home network for education and experience purposes. I plan to install it on a new laptop as opposed to an old spare one that has obsolete technology. I am currently using a virtualbox lab at home that has several 2012 Standard servers and a couple Win 8 Enterprise clients. They are all trial versions.

Server 2012 appears to run desktop programs without issue, although I don't know where the limits are.

The home network will not stress the server heavily. As I said, it's mostly for educational purposes. Therefore, is there any reason why I wouldn't want to use the Server 2012 Essentials laptop as a desktop pc, loading desktop software on it and treating Essentials 2012 as a high powered desktop OS? Why would this be a bad idea?

Edit a couple of hours later: What about loading hyper-v on the laptop, and then loading Server 2012 Essentials and Windows 8 pro as guest systems? Can Win 8 access usb and audio in that configuration?  Other than complexity, would this give me anything good? Is 8GB ram enough?