Quite a leap from 3D Studio max 5 to max 8! (yeah i know, max 5 had some annoying flaws and i should have updated much earlier).
Anyways, I've been busy playing with the new "toys", here are some of the results:

 
hair simulation:
So Autodesk integretad a hair&fur plugin into max, and I simply LOVE it. In this example I used a simple sphere to grow hairs on, groomed them roughly and tweaked the appereance. That can be done pretty quickly and the result is quite spectacular, I think. Notice the multi-hair strands to make several hairs clump together, as well as the randomly inserted, single grey hairs.

 
cloth simulation:
In max 8 the cloth simulation plugin is now standard, after beeing available only to subscription-customers in max 7.  I especially like the intuitive way to create new cloths, just draw the pannels which will form the new garment and let max sew it together around the body that will wear it. My apologies for the slightly sexistic example picture (part of the model from the amazone I did quite a while ago), but the model proved to be perfect to test this feature quickly.

There a quiet a lot of new features I really like a lot, including:

• pelt mapping: finally a quick and intuitive solution for unwrapping objects, the days of fiddling around for hours with polygons to lay them out flat seem to be gone. Just define the seams where the model should get opened and let max stretch the polygons out.
• Scene States: lets you store different scene stages (like different light configurations etc) in one single file, which is a huge improvement when it comes to managing projects.
• Improved Biped features: let you for example define twisting bones, and there are also quite a few improvements when it comes to animating a Biped.
• Skinmorph: a quick and intuitive way to solve some common problems when it comes to rigging, like collapsing meshes around the hips when the legs move or a bulging bizeps.

• Improvents in polygon-modeling: like the bridge-tool, additions to ring- and loop selection and the ability to instantly create opened chamfers.
• Sweep Modifier: a simplified loft-modifier, yet it does create  clean polys at intersecting path-splines.
• Motion Mixer improvements: now the Motion Mixer supports also non-biped objects.
• Batch Rendering: no need anymore to fire up backburner on a single machine to do batchrendering, now you can do it out of max (especially good together with scene states)
• Skin modifier improvements: assigning weights to vertices is now a lot faster.
• Displacement Maps: can now be quickly generated by overlaying a high-res model and the target low-res model, then just use the projection modifier feature to generate the displacement map.

..well, i could go on and on, but I guess this isn't that interesting for those who aren't CG-Nerds. ;)

and finally, the update to max 8 allows me to use Service Pack 3 for FinalRender Stage-1, here I especially like the completly recoded microtriangle displacement (which had some seriouse flaws in previouse versions):

 
Micro Triangle Displacement:
Here i used a simple sphere and applied a procedural displacement map.