Don't worry about the 8", its a great instrument. On Friday night I was "galaxy hunting" in the Virgo cluster and turned up lots of galaxies. I enjoy nebulae, especially M42 and the Homolocus neblua in Carina. Splitting doubles and cruising globulars and open star clusters is a great passtime.
If only I had your skies.........
As for the mount, there are many ways to improve them. I can track the moon at well over 400x with my mount but there are simplier things to do like milkjug washers and real teflon on your Az. Real teflon on your Alt motion and lumpy laminate glued over your bearing is a bonus and a pair of speaker magnets with felt covers to stop scratching. With these you can balance your scope and not use the springs so the motion is really light.
The list is endless and keeps us busy on those cloudy nights
Point is, its a great scope and I have not even dented the list of things within my grasp in several years.
Keep looking up.