Thanks for pointing out that Google's chosen data may be questionable. I found two other sources citing more like ~2.5% market share, which is in line with what you cite. I was motivated to go check our analytics and we're at more than 7% IE 8, so way too high for us to think about dropping support.
I speculate that sites with low numbers of IE 8 users are typically oriented towards more technically savvy users, and/or if those sites were never working for IE 8 to begin with and so never had an opportunity to pick up IE 8 users in the first place.
I speculate that sites with low numbers of IE 8 users are typically oriented towards more technically savvy users, and/or if those sites were never working for IE 8 to begin with and so never had an opportunity to pick up IE 8 users in the first place.