Eric,
I'd sell it too you, but there are many internet parts houses that will sell you one pretty cheap. I bought a few for safe keeping a few years back thinking that once the Shimano 9 speed stuff is out they would stop making the 8 speed cassettes. This really hasn't turned out to be the case, you can get them for a pretty good price now. I saw this deal on the Performance Bike site for the chain and cassette:
Chain and Cassette
I used to have a Trek 970 steel bike that I loved. It had straight XT shifter/brake stuff on it, but was before the side pull/cross top brakes came out. That bike was stolen, so I bought a Klein Pulse Pro. It too is a nice bike, I've upgraded to XTR wheels, and SRAM ESP 9.0 twist shifters. I think I like twist shifting more than the old trigger shift, but I may convert back to XT "standard" trigger shift on my next go around. They changed the trigger mechanism on XTR this year. I haven't tried it yet, but I didn't like what I saw at the bike shop.
I think the 8 speed stuff is stronger than the 9 speed stuff. I know they were having chain breakage problems early on, but I think they have them solved now.
I have Campagnolo Chorus on my road bike. It's 9 speed and THAT is really getting hard to find. I hate to have to convert it to 10 speed, but I've only got one source for 9 speed cassettes and chains. The Campy cassettes don't seem to last very long (although I put alot more miles on the road bike), so I've been through about 1 per year. I've heard the Campy 10 speed stuff is an improvement, but they last even less time.
One thing that helped Campy just a year or so ago is that Shimano's patent on Hyperglide expired, so Campy is now able to sell their version. They call it Ultraglide. I had bad experiences with (older) Shimano road bike drivetrain parts, but that was quite a while back. If I redid my roadbike, I'd have to consider a Durace setup instead of a 10 speed Campy setup.
Sholin