I don't have any Shapton stones but I do have an D8EE and I'd respectfully disagree with the fact that it isn't a polisher to the same level as any other 8K. The scratch patterns are similar (at 100x mag) to the 8K Norton I have, it cuts much faster so perhaps you need to do less laps on the 4K before progressing to the D8EE. Either that or you've not broken it in fully. I used it to lap my Norton 8K for a bit, this made a major difference to the feel of the razor passing over the D8EE.
Barney