I used to have an 8SE and absolutely loved it. The Alt-Az mount was very good with finding objects and the views through the 8" was a good match. It was very easy to use and only took me one night out with it to get my bearings.
However, the best thing about the setup was the ability to remove the OTA off the mount allowing you to put it on a GEM later on. If you ever wanted to get into astrophotography.
Which was exactly what I did.
