You're the man, a daily driven Evo! If I were to have one, I will also drive it daily!
Why E8:
- E8 has 6 speed so should give better gearing and marginally better FC at highway cruising speed. I think you won't need the strength of the 5 speeders coz you won't bee modding it too much anyway for a daily driver right?
- Improvement in engine internals and better torque.
- Improvement in AYC to S-AYC (Super AYC) to give better handling.
- For the front body parts (bumper/headlights/fenders/hoods), it's easier to find than the E7 because 8 & 9 are interchangeable while 7 is different by itself. (unless you go for those already converted from 7 to 8/9). So for example if you buy E7 with still original face design then got accident and cracked your bumper or one of your headlights, or bend you hood, then more difficult to find the parts. However if you have E8, you can replace those with E8 or E9 parts. The front face design also was supposed to give better cooling efficiency.
For more details, you can read it here:
http://www.lancerregister.com/downloads/MLR Evo Buyers Guide v1_00.pdf
Then for the example above, it's a newer car by 3 yrs (2004 vs 2001) so theoretically should be in better condition (of course subject to detail inspection) while the price is one of the lowest I've seen for an E8 (I've only seen once last year offering of a white E8 for 75k which was gone in less than a month).