Oops, I thought you were using raidtools2. I haven't used mdadm much, but based upon the link provided and the manpage, you appear to be correct. I take it your /etc/mdadm/mdadm.conf properly lists all drives you want in the array before you reboot?Are all partitions marked as linux raid autodetect?If all the above questions are answered "Yes" then post the results of 'mdadm -D /dev/md8' after a reboot, and we may be able to give further help.
AWW YEEAAAAAAAAAHHHHHH that was the last piece of the puzzle ... such an obvious oversite, but nonetheless .. it feels good! thanks for the help, -steve