Hey Mike,
first of all, thank you for the purchase!
This is indeed something that needs fixing, even though it’s still a bit sad that the places where the future of the society gets educated are using the crappiest browsers in existence :) I’ve managed to correct the background resizing feature for portfolio items, yet I am not sure I understood the header issue (the header looks fine in my IE8 emulator). Could you provide a screenshot illustrating the problem?
Regarding the background fix – I’ve included it into the upcoming theme update (to version 1.2), along with several new features and other bug fixes; the new version should be live within 24 hours, but if you need the fix faster, I can send you the files and explain what to do with them.
Sincerely,
Andrew / Satori Studio