Well I've played with a bit more and my initial thoughts are pretty much unchanged. They just recompiled it and shoe horned in some color changes and new icons (that aren't what I'd call pro or high quality). They didn't actually address any of the issues nor did they improve or modernize anything. It's still ACID, but then so was 7.0. The 64bitness is a win, but they had 10 years.
It no longer has Quicktime support (since there is no 64bit Quicktime) and thus it can't load MP4s or MOV files. I had thought they would do what they did with Vegas but no. There is a Quicktime IO provider DLL (in a format Sony/SF never documented publicly, so you can't write your own) but it doesn't seem to work/do anything. Perhaps it is 32bit only (yes the 32bit version is still selectable when you install). So compared to 7.0 there is actually less video support. They could have added ffmpeg support and gotten a ton of video support, but again, no.
Oddly enough in the directory it installs is the old 7.0 ACID_readme.htm file. They didn't even bother making one for 8.0
It still has commands to publish to Acid Planet, which I guess is still running. Odd they didn't try and funnel stuff to MAGIX offerings.
I still love the paint loops UI mechanism and have often wished SONAR, Cubase, Repear or Abelton would have some option to work that way.
They could have done so much more. If I had done the trial I wouldn't have bothered buying the upgrade. I would recommend that they quit offering/remove the trial, all it will do is convince people not to buy this.