I own R93 since 1998 - odd 20 years, it was around from dusty october Zim heat to snowy freezing Alpine tops, mud, pouring rains...never failed me.

IMO R8 was mainly a marketing thing since market was getting floded with R93 - they indeed add the removable magazine/trigger part since with R93 you must empty magazine round by round from the top and it might be anoying...all the rest is - give or take - the same, but the trade continued to blossom.

On exploding Blasers - I don't know, must have been some innovative waaaay out of line stuff (I've heard something about reloads with pistol powders but that is just a hearsay...?). With all the laws here in EU (German even more so)...with a tiny hint of flaw (design, material, production...) then there would be no Blaser anymore.

Here is a vid of rifles with obstruction in the barrel - R93 is at 0:43...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e4AqMl1A4aQ

Only thing related I remember back in the early days, was a recall of all the R93's since there was a batch of pins from the trigger mechanism that were accidentaly made of regular instead of stainless steel and installed into some rifles - wasn't mine - since every R93 has a "P" stamped on the factory trigger.

http://www.handgunrepairshop.com/blaser.htm

Amyway - R93 works for me and I don't see any reason to change it for R8, YMMV.

P.S. It is a tool more than a rifle tho