Yeah, this has been a long time coming. Unfortunately I'm not all optimistic. Its been...quite a long break for those people, and honestly the later seasons of that show pretty much sucked compared to the brilliant beginning, or even the book versions.
We'll see.
I think the 6th & 8th series lacked the writing brilliance of all the others, relying mostly on cheap gags as opposed to interesting banter, but like Necromancer said, even at it's worst Dwarf is a helluva lot better than most other shit in its class. Either way, I think this is looking better than anything series 8 had to offer.
On the other hand, I highly enjoyed season 7 for the most part. The production value was unmatched and the stories were varied and interesting. 7's major downfall was the "phasing out" of the Rimmer character. I do think the second episode from that season, "Stoke Me a Clipper" is one of the best Dwarf episodes of all time however, with the pre-title sequence being possibly the funniest 5 consecutive minutes in the show's entire history.