well, cf8 has a new <cffeed> tag... and though i have not ever needed to
use it (i prefer to create my feeds manually), it is *supposed to* make
creating and consuming (readin) rss and atom feeds a breeze... but
judging by many a blog posts, it is not without bugs...
google <cffeed>, and check out ray camden's blog at coldfusionjedi.com
for many posts on this tag
but there is really nothing stopping you from using <cfhttp> + <cfxml>
tags in cf7 to achieve what you want...
as for porting cf7 apps to cf8 - it is usually painless, but depending
on the complexity of your server/hardware configuration, it may require
close attention to minute details
just to check if you code runs fine in cf8, there is a code analyser
available in cf admin.
hth
Azadi Saryev
Sabai-dee.com
http://www.sabai-dee.com/