Its who made it, and the wait time to get one which are the two main factors that i think make it valuable to some. While i have no doubt this scope would be excellent. Its not practical to spend so much on a scope of 8". The price of AP scopes is inflated due to the nature of the waiting time to get one.
If the intention is to use the telescope for astronomy then i think other scopes one smaller budgets will suffice. From a practical use stand point one must consider how much more performance you are actually going to get out of it for the price. I am sure there are other scopes out there that approach the same quality and are more affordable.
For example this 7" Questar
http://www.questar-corp.com/questar.htm
Even this at almost 9000usd i think is quiet high, considering for not much more you could get a Planewave CDK 17". But it depends on what your use is for the telescope. Visual or Imaging or both.