Maybe thats a difference between v7 and v8?
Or double check that you are looking in the right location.
At first I was just a "little" confused as to were to look for a couple of things, that turned out to be in sub menu's.
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I just tried it myself with v8 on my other PC, and as you say there are some items that are missing.
However with doing as much as I could from the instructions for v7, it did speed it up as well.
(Must be all those "Add-ons)
Actually I think I prefer v7, it seems to be a little more straight forward, especially with the tool-bars.