The longest they could have "planned" this was less than a year. Mike says right there in his blog that the LPU8 CD won't be all live tracks because they heard people saying that's not what they wanted - LPU8 is a response to the backlash from LPU7, so if they recorded new material for LPU8, they recorded it after LPU7 came out. From the time LPU7 was released, the only real time they could have done any significant studio work was as follows:
-December-January, which is doubtful because they took some time off for the holidays, plus they had rehearsals for Europe, and LPU7 had JUST come out anyway.
-March-May, again, doubtful because we know Chester did more work on DBS at this point, plus Mike was busy working on stuff for his art show.
-Late August-Early October, which is also doubtful because, as I said, they obviously had work to do on Road to Revolution.
Not necessarily, they could have unrealeased stuff prior to LPU 07, and since they heard about all this backlash, they decided to bring it out.
No new album material could strictly mean no new material from the one they're working on right now, or it could mean, out of all their albums, no new material is going to be based off any of them possibly.
maybe some Xero stuff?