I hardly dare to start the migration from the C5 --> C8
The objective of the C8 was precisely to have an even more stable environment. When I look at the forum regarding zigbee issues, this does not seem to be the case.
I had blind faith in Hubitat that it would be better with the C8, bought it without research, I should have known better, the trust is a bit damaged. I didn't do my homework before buying the new C8.
A little bit disappointed.
If you tell people what Zigbee devices you have, others can let you know if they have had any issues with them.
Otherwise, what is the purpose of this post?
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Tales of woe before even attempting.... I will acknowledge that there are some exceptions, but I think if you read the forum, you'll find very few instances where the move to the C-8 was a failure. Also note most people who succeed rarely post.
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The vast majority of our customers have not had problems with this. Mesh networks are a bit fragile, and performing a migration from one hub to another is itself a challenging thing to do. But, it works. It may take a little effort to get Zigbee to settle down after a migration, or, as usually is the case, it may work perfectly straight away. There is no magic involved. C-8 hubs have a significantly different (and improved) Zigbee radio, with external antennas. So the RF environment with the hub is not going to be identical to the C-5 environment.
Don't take anecdotes posted here as the answer about what to expect.
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5 Ikea repeaters, 4 ikea button controllers Gen2, 35 Xiaomi/Aqara devices, without any problems on my C5, lots of wifi devices
I believe if the Aqara devices are routing through your repeaters they should work fine, according to what I have seen others say. I am sure someone else who has those devices will able to give more info.
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It would be more reassuring if these problems did not exist
https://community.hubitat.com/t/zigbee-devices-unreliable-after-c7-to-c8-migration/
https://community.hubitat.com/t/c8-zigbee-radio-turning-off-on-multiple-times-a-day/
"Unfortunately, some new Zigbee 3.0 devices have problems with the EFR32MG21 chipset used in Hubitat C-8"
But OK, I will give it try.
If the use of repeaters is desired start with a lower zigbee power. Most of the problems that I saw were related to the C-8 power being turned up and bypassing the repeaters that people were using to shield incompatibilities in some devices.
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Absolutely not. If it were up to me, I would remove the 5 repeaters. Would it be a good idea with my Xiaomi/Aqara devices? I placed them specifically to provide a stable environment for the Xiaomi/Aqara devices
Read this guide:
THEN
Step 1: Do all that's needed to generate a clean Migration Backup. Then perform the Migration Backup.
Step 2: Power OFF the C-5.
If you follow the steps, you should be able to see that if the C-8 migration didn't go well, as long as you didn't Exclude/Include ZWave devices, you could power down the C-8 and power up the C-5 and you'd be right where you are today. As far as the C-7 is concerned, it simply had a power cycle. All the Zigbee devices will be looking for a Controller when the C-8 vanished, and will find the C-5 and drop right back.
In fact, maybe you want to try that.. Take the steps to prep the C-5 for a migration and do the Migration backup. Power off the C-5 and power on the C-8. Verify the C-8 can see the cloud based Migration backup and then do the restore. When it's all done, power down the C-8 and power up the C-5 and notice nothing changed. 
Power off the C-5 knowing your lifeline back is safe and ready. Power up the C-8 and carry on with the migration.
+++ Don't be in a race to power off -- power on.. the Z-Devices need a moment or two to realize something changed. If you could give it a solid minute between powering down one hub before powering up the other, it should work a bit smoother.
+++ I think the blind faith you gave Hubitat is justified. Feeling the willies shouldn't subtract from that.
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