Wow, I've never had my comments quoted and shot down so many times, so fast!
Don't get me wrong, there's an obvious large market for this and I bet they will sell tons of them. FAS doesn't need any more reason than that. Besides, Cliff already has so much awesome FX code written, why not leverage that into a new product for a new market segment?
We here on the forum all know how great the amp modelling is. Products have been trying to out-do tubes for at least 40 years, since the first solid-state guitar amps came out, and later the first digital products. Nothing ever sounded good enough, but Fractal finally pulled off what seemed impossible. Thanks to the Axe-Fx, many here have sold off ALL their tube amps and will never use tubes again. This is revolutionary stuff and (in my mind) this is what Fractal (the brand) is known for. They finally made tube amps unnecessary.
Now the FX8 doesn't actually diminish any of that. We on the forum certainly know it. I was just sayin... surely the thought I expressed (poorly) must have crossed minds of others?