I agree with Drew here, if one is running Vista SP2 or Windows 7, IE9 is the way to go. Less bloat, more secure & attractive, the user has more real estate on the monitor, & is overall a better browser.
Besides that, why would anyone want to run a 3 year old browser? XP users can only move forward to IE8, as far as IE goes, but users of later Windows OS's can do better. Running IE8 on Vista SP2 & Windows 7 poses a greater security risk, compared to the security of IE9. And probably once Windows 8 become available for retail purchase, I expect it to be available for Windows 7 users shortly thereafter (don't know about Vista SP2 on this one).
Cat