[Gorzaloon]

but am hoping to upgrade to the Meade 8" SC.

Now that the GOTO's are out, you can probably pick up a noncomputerized used one reasonably. My niece got her 8" Meade from a club member for $500!!

Of course, one has to LOOK for stuff with these. But unless you are really deep into it, beyond 8" might be getting into a diminishing returns scenario. If you visited the above uRL I posted for my 10", you see that I built the 24" at Penn State, and quite a few others. But with the skies the way they have been the last 15 years, you may not gain as much in huge aperture as you expect.

Jupiter in a 24" is a sight, though...

[a_federalist]

Yes. One reason I'm going with an 8" over a larger scope is an 8" is still fairly portable for me.
I am fortunate in that my dark site property is not too far from the Goldendale observatory which has a 24.5" scope. It's pretty awesome. If you're ever in that area you might want to check it out.