It's difficult for me to explain but I thought it was really strange to me that of all the companies it would be Leica who wouldn't change the numbering scheme for digital. Most companies seemed to change their numbering scheme for digital even on lines of compact cameras that most people wouldn't care about, If I'd have been asked to guess what company was least likely to do that I probably would have said Leica.
M8 to me seemed to suggest that it was just as much a replacement for the M7 as the M7 was for the M6 rather than a fundamentally different sort of camera and with a die hard traditionalist clientele it seemed a bit weird. The reason I brought this up now is I'd said that the numbers would start to go up quick maybe once every 5 years, but no they're going up much quicker than that. I hope that even if you disagree with me you can see what I'm getting at.
As for your second point, There's a difference between creating a ridiculously confusing naming scheme and changing it for a different kind of camera, I'm not sure what your argument is.