Yeh I mean it would be pretty wishful thinking but too bad there wasn't like some sort of back support for a kind of script emulator or something to bridge all script versions.
Ahh the old pillar tutorial snares another one =P I think it only worked in 9, when 2008 rolled out the script broke again. Not sure if the author ever got it working again? You might want to try the Maya-esk Outliner script for Max. http://www.scriptspot.com/3ds-max/outliner It tends to chug with heavy scenes but it is…
Ahh man that sucks... It would be pretty rough going back. Good luck with that, hopefully you'll be back in the land of the up-to-date soon. Only to find all the cool scripts you dug up for 8 don't work in the latest versions =P