Piffle.

- 8 marked the transition to mass use of the internet;

- 8 had much better multiprocessor (2, 4 x 604e processor) functionality (esp. 8.6);

- the kernel in 8.6 in particular did multitasking way better than 7.6-8.5 ever did, especially on a 604e or 604ev (try it);

- 8 supported firewire and usb;

- 8 (alas) basically left behind QuickDraw GX and OpenDoc;

- 8.6 is among the most stable of all the old "classic" systems, and is comparable to something like 7.1 in this respect;

- unlike 9.x, 8.x doesn't eat all your available ram when using a limited machine, yet offers compatibility with more recent software releases (e.g., Office 2001);

- even a fast 603ev is a dog running 9.x, whereas it runs any version of 8 very well;

- my PowerBook 2400c likes 8.6 a lot.

So it's a good question why no System 8 fanzone exists. (For a while, by the way, there was a System 7.1 heaven too.)