Finding it on sale is a good thing. When I finally updated my embroidery software I thought it was so different than my old one, which I didn't know very well either. Thank goodness I have a friend who also teaches it and I was soon to find out that the things I thought they'd taken out, were still there so its a matter of finding where they put the stuff at. I have 7 and have done very little with it but when I was watching my friend with 8 and we were trying to see what color\design of fabric looked best where, it was such a great help. You could see what it would look like

I upgraded from EQ7 to 8 and so glad I did. I have to say I hardly used the 7 as it never seemed that easy to use--I had trouble even finding the right toolbars!. I did purchase the books (design a block, design a quilt, design more quilts)when they were on sale and worked through about half the lessons. But even without doing all the lessons, I think 8 is the way to go.

If you know EQ7 you should have no problem with EQ8.
I made the switch/upgraded and I love EQ8.