Hi Rob,
Have you ever heard of the M-concept? Well, with an M lower than 3 it's ATC when you are to act if nobody has opened the pot, so A8 is absolutely a superb hand. For your information, this was with 7 players left and I was the short stack with just 3 players behind me to act. In fact, my effective M was a lot lower than 3, as the table had less than 10 players left...
But... looking at your comments to my post I don't think you have a clue what I am talking about
So, here's a short explanation.
The M is calculated as followed:
((Small Blind + Big Blind + Antes) / Your Stack)
In this case 6000 + 12000 + 400 (let's say 400, because I don't exactly remember the Ante amount). That makes a total of 18400. So having an M of nothing (my stack was about 30K), it's double or nothing if you want to have a shot at getting any further in the tournament. Remember, you can only last 2 orbits, so you can't wait for any good starting hand. If you can go all-in before anyone else has acted, then any two cards are good, preferably having an Ace or a King to have at least the option to win with a high card.
I hope you understand this concept. I'll be happy to explain it in details on MSN if you wish... but trust me... going all-in in this situation can't be compared at all to your "calling with AQ" in the middle stages of a tournament.
G