I have the M8, the 1520, the 920 and I had a 925 until very recently... They all took excellent photos, but honestly, for sharing on Facebook, Twitter and Instagram, it didn't matter. The M8 is faster than all of them in action, but that doesn't make it better. I will say this, for social sharing, the M8 is a great camera with a better dynamic range than the Nokia's - top to bottom. Unfortunately, that's where it ends for the M8's superiority. The Lumia PureView line was designed to be the best camera on the market in a phone. I'll pull the 1020 out since it was really a camera with a phone attached to it, but going against the 1520, 920, 925 and 830... The PureView system is amazing.
When you look at the original topic though, Nokia/MS users don't understand what's going on in the market today. It's an all out war between Apple and Android. MS is cleaning up the mess that is left behind from Symbian, BlackBerry and a few others. There's not much in the way of 'good news' to be had in the world of Windows Phone right now. Major providers are pulling Apps (Chase Bank, Bank of America), the OS is going through another 'revamp' where your carrier might or might not give you the update, and people spend more time bickering about what device is better than what they have instead of just feeling great about the device they have. It's not a good place to be.
Microsoft has new flagship devices in the pipe, but they are months away from launch. The Store is still a mess and UA's haven't caught on in the slightest. All the great features of Win 10 are starting to disappear just like they never happened with Win 7... Three screens, one experience... It's just not going to be a reality. If Lumia fans would start embracing others, like HTC, Blu, heck, even Yazz, then maybe Windows Phone will have a chance. Until then, Microsoft is creating a rift in their own OS group and it is going to lead to MS going Android for devices and services. It's cheaper to develop software for a platform that everyone already uses and sell the services (see the Office 365 earnings from last quarter) than it is to sell hardware that nobody wants.
Anyways, to round this out, NO, the camera on the M8 isn't "as good" as the Lumia PureView camera, but then again, the Lumia PureView camera is only on 2 current models right now if I'm not mistaken...