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@edscoble
If you hate spinning away on an 8 speed transmission, it's worth changing the chainset rather to a smaller one, so you'll ride more on the middle of the cassette while laden with a standard gear (as in 11-25t), or a triple.
If you tour on a normal chainset with a 11-25t, you end up cross-chaining due to using the top three cog and accelerate the wear and tear of the drivetrain;
The other advantage of having a bigger jump between each sprocket is that you don't have to change 2 or 3 time to get to the ratio you feel comfortable with (rolling hill for example), for some people, this outweighs the disadvantage of not finding a ratio that's not too spinny or too mashy.
It's all a very personal preference, much like fixed gear ratios.