Thomas,
I'll let you in on a little budget secret... I did the entire Delirious record using only 2 or 3 rolls of 2"... I dumped everything into digital at the end of the day, then I'd spend the evenings editing the takes together..
I did their previous record on Radar, which was nice, but basics on 2", dump to digital and bulk bulk bulk! Much nicer.
One nice feature of the A-800 is that the sync outputs are XLR, not those DB-25's on the 827. I have always run a few on tie lines for triggering, etc... But in general I've preferred the speed of the transports on the A-827 when locking. The a-80 is certainly the opposite of the 827 in terms of transport, but man what a sound!
-CZ