In case anyone cares...
I fixed IE8. Turns out there was another incompatible add-on. Easy enough to figure out once I stopped to realize that it had loaded with add-ons disable. From there, it was a matter of narrowing things down. Once I disabled the Upromise toolbar (compatible with IE 6 & 7, but apparantly not yet 8), IE managed to load.
It's still slow and clunky and light on features, but it does seem to be an improvement over 7. And I understand it has some significant security improvements, too.
I fixed IE8. Turns out there was another incompatible add-on. Easy enough to figure out once I stopped to realize that it had loaded with add-ons disable. From there, it was a matter of narrowing things down. Once I disabled the Upromise toolbar (compatible with IE 6 & 7, but apparantly not yet 8), IE managed to load.
It's still slow and clunky and light on features, but it does seem to be an improvement over 7. And I understand it has some significant security improvements, too.