I have installed RH8.0 on at least 10 different machines and, in most cases, it 'wanted' the first three CDs. If memory serves, I believe the minimal workstation option was the only install which did not require the three CDs. (But no bets on that.)
The real problem is that if you don't have the CDs it wants, it will abort the install and you either have to be pretty adept at Linux to finish the install yourself or start the install over again.
With regard to RH9, not everyone should immediately install it. Unless there is a compelling reason, I would hold off for a while. There are enough new packages that it may be worthwhile for beginners to wait at the sidelines until some of the bugs are worked out. (For example, if they decided to go with XFree86 4.3, there will be a bunch of tweaking to be done before it will work well with a wide variety of graphic cards, mice, and other input devices.) It's just my 2 cents, but I ran the last beta of RH9.0 for about 3 weeks.