I say forget the V8. I ran plenty of them and the new technology is where its at. the 3 liter Mercs are great, the new evenrude 250 HO is good, the V8s didn't handle that great and gear case problems were never ending. If you get a Merc with the offshore brackets the down pressure of the trim unit makes the handling of the boat great in big water.
As far as the 26p offshore you were referring to. Is that a Lightning ET style your talking about? If so as we have been talking about on here over the last few pages, I think we all want to know the answer to that question. I haven't heard anybody answer it yet. I was kind of hoping Fast Fun 2 John would find out for us, as he is pretty connected to BBlades.