Anyone know where to legally purchase 3ds Max 8?  I prefer it because most of the plug-ins I need only work well with this specific version.

yes that would be 2006

I agree.

Really fair 3D model marketplace - http://www.cgtrader.com.

So basically, there’s nothing to be done here?

I can’t use the plugins I need which only work with v8 and I cannot buy a legal copy. Downloading it, despite the risks involved is also not an option as nobody really carries this old software anymore…

Is there a super wizard around who wants to update all my old plugins for me? lol

Sigh… this is a bummer

Nope - nothing to be done. Max8 is something like 7, soon to be 8, releases out of date. The only thing you can realistically do is to find out if there are up-to-date versions of the plugins you need and if there aren’t then the only way would be to recreate the parts done with plugins in some other way.

[edit]Take a look at maxplugins.de and see if your plugins are on there[/edit]

Max 4.2 through 2013.
XP-64 (SP2)
NVidia 9800GTX-512 (Driver 266.58).
Core 2 Quad Q6600 2.4GHz, 8Gb Ram, DX9.0c.