I haven't taken out a stopwatch and done time comparisons (the stubbornness of 8 to leave and 7 to run again being significant factors), but I think that the whole ripping-CD thing is inferior to 7, and seems slower. In 7, whether this is true or not, I could do both normalize and rip/encode simultaneously, but not in 8, or at least that's what 7 and 8 each claim.
8's copy one, encode one, copy next, encode next just seems slower than 7's method of copying them all as fast as it could and then letting the encoding catch up. Again, no time trials have been made, but the subjective experience seems slower. Particularly since I can remove the disc in 7 after the copying has happened but the encoding hasn't, and can move on to use the drive for other things or insert the next disc, while in 8 you just get the feeling of being stuck until the whole thing is finished.
And it does seem appropriate to mention here that I supposedly was granted my wishlist item for mass ripping support (allowing copying to continue across multiple discs while the encoder catches up, in the method of 7), but no such animal has been seen to date. And again, my opinion is that the 8 experience is subjectively longer, so not only did I not get my wish, I got the opposite; it was made worse.
Just my .02.
Severian