Per danno13's question, I think many would agree that season 9 is better than season 7--it is the last of the quality seasons for the show, although 10 has it's moments.
Picked up season 8 this morning and skimmed through most of the shows, which I haven't seen in some time. Overall, I think season 8 is an improvement over season 7, with better guest stars (Ed Asner, Donna Mills, Susan Dey, Dan O' Herlihy, Lew Ayres (1st appearance since the pilot), George Takei, John Colicos, Pat Hingle, Charles Durning, Adam Arkin, Helen Heyes), and of course several strong episodes at the top of the season to kick things off. Additionally, McGarrett has ditched the awful cream-colored suit and jet black hair dye (he doesn't seem quite so pasty as in the last few seasons). In fact, the sideburns seem a little shorter, the suits are a little less garish, and the music scores are very good.
The 2-hour opener, as Mister Mike mentioned, has great production values and is a good espionage thriller with Wo Fat, although he doesn't seem to have much to do other than sit around on his hydrofoil and let his henchman handle all the dirty work.
Other great episodes include "McGarrett is Missing" wherein he survives a plane crash in the jungle with a convict from season 2; "Death's Name is SAM" in which terrorists attempt to blow up a jetliner using surface-to-air missiles; "The Case Against McGarrett" features McGarrett being held hostage in prison by Honore Vashon, and is the wrap-up to the season 5 Vashon trilogy; "Retire in Sunny Hawaii Forever" features Helen Hayes as Danno's aunt investigating murder at a retirement home; "The Defector" is another great espionage thriller involving a Red Chinese agent; "Deadly Persuason" features a psycho out to murder the visiting royal family; "A Touch of Guilt" is about a senator's son who's involved in a gang rape. I think overall there are fewer lousy episodes this season than season 7.
Some other observations about the DVD set itself:
-The song used in "Sing a Song of Suspense" is intact
-The disclaimer on the box from previous seasons, "Some episodes may be edited from their original network versions", is NOT on the box this time around.
-They use the same shot of Danno and Duke on both the front and the back of the box
-Either I'm getting used to it, or the JL picture on the front of the box looks better than it did in the web artwork. Maybe they touched it up a tad so it didn't look quite so photoshopped.
-It's interesting that inside the disc cases, they have another new nighttime shot of downtown Honolulu, again looking very modern like the season 7 cover shot.
4 more seasons to go, and season 9 (hopefully coming sometime this summer) is another winner. Thanks CBS-P!