You hit the nail on the head there Naja,

I'm a student and can't really afford to be upgrading my software on a regular basis, even at student rates Maya is expensive!!

Maya 8 is not worse than Maya 7 by any means, there are plenty of improvements, new tools, a new version of mentalray is included, it's 64bit compatable the list goes on but there are a few signs to say that it might have been rushed out to get Autodesks name on it.

For instance, on occasion, the help line at the bottom of the UI still points to Maya 7 menus to assist you, not very helpful really when the menu system has been re-vamped.

Take it easy,

Mat.