That's good news (for me, at least) that Journal is still there. That's what got me to buy a (now OLD) Tablet PC in the first place -- using it as an electronic replacement for my paper Day-Timer. XP Journal was OK but the handwriting recognition was poor. Then, they improved both a lot in Vista. Got even better when Win7 came out.
I kind of expected it to be GONE with Win8 because, let's face it, Journal is geared entirely toward hand-written text and diagrams. These really aren't the kind of things you're going to be doing on a touch tablet -- regardless of what the iPad2 TV commercials show. You really need a stylus of some kind for handwriting and for drawing.
And, I hate to admit it, but if Win8 and the associated tablets don't come out for another year, and I still need the use of a tablet then, I will just get a tablet with Win8 preloaded. By then, the default tablet will probably have SSD instead of HDD, USB 3.0 ports, maybe 4G LTE built-in as well as N-class wireless -- and, I hope, last an entire work day on a single battery charge.