Love it as is, but happy to test the beta as well. :)

I've used and liked web faction for years.

JavaScript Jabber is really great for JS devs.

For the audiences we support, we're seeing anywhere between 1-3% usage on IE 8 today. Yes, it's dying, but unfortunately it's still in wide enough usage to need to be supported. What large company would ignore that % of their audience if the cost is relatively small? It just makes good economic sense to spend the extra money to provide a usable experience for as much of their audience as possible.