You have me all wrong as well. I feel the same way Money does. And control wise going from 08 to 2k8 is like night and day, 08's controls feel intuitive while still have enough depth to feel like a sim experience. 2k's on the other hand just feel really clunky and unintuitive due to the whole hybrid scheme. Its almost like they wanted to use EA's skill stick but figured they get too much flack for it so they moved shooting and passing to the bumpers and it just for me didn't feel very natural. Add in the stiff deking animations that appear from the latest media to still be in 2k9 and well 2k8 ended up back on the shelf.
I think really its going to come down to AI for me when it comes to 2k9, I can deal with some stiff animations and lack of presentation if the gameplay itself is good enough. Hell 2k3 had horrible graphics even for its time, but the AI was so phenominal that it didn't matter, that game was pure hockey gold and I'd be on cloud nine if VC could recapture that, if not for 2k9 at least move back in that direction to get the series back on track and compete with EA on a serious level.
I see alot of positives in the latest media, but there are areas that still need major work, same with EA's game as well. I'm hoping that we can have 2 great hockey titles per year because we all know thats really what us as fans should want. It matters little whose name is on the box imo.