Oh, I was really happy with my A7 comm and really miss some of the features that I need to develop now by myself. In fact I never really found a engine again that pleased me enough to use it, so I wrote my own stuff as GStudio replacement.
So no, I don't think that 800 bucks are wasted money for A8, but I can see that it seems like a waste for someone who can't use it anyway. But I'm afraid that you will never be happy with others engines too