Perspective from someone who is primarily a lead player: I don't even like the 26.5" scale very much. The 28" they used on the C8 with Floyd Rose was extremely uncomfortable for lead work IMO. That's why I didn't buy one. Going to 28" for all of their 8's is a mistake IMO.
A solution as mentioned above is to play things at a higher position, which is what I do with my 9-strings. They are 27.5" scale but have 30 frets which helps a lot. I basically just tune it a whole step lower than I'd like, capo the 2nd fret, and effectively have a 28-fret ~25" scale guitar tuned F#BEADGCEA with the low note clarity of the 27.5" scale.
I would love to play them side by side and check for myself if 28" would be too uncomfortable to play some lead stuff and fast riffs on the first frets (I'm talking riffs like this one, very first song Termination Proclamation from Nevermore's Obsidian Conspiracy, although this is a 7 string).
I think Schecter should at least have some 8's with 26.5". I didn't read all the specs of the 8's they have now, but the ones I saw are all 28".