OK, so I have updated my base as per the picture below. The ideas behind it are still the same, i.e. try and get a one-star loss, on average, twice a day, so I can raid 2xper day and retain / gain trophies (plus a bit of farming abandoned bases, here and there).
It seems to have had a slightly better success ratio, especially with all three tessla in operation (an archer queen often picks off my town hall at the end of a battle, but now I've had lots of raids where a tessla and/or other defense that remains gets her before she can finish off my TH, thereby making it just a one-star loss). Currently there is still one wizard tower maxing out, which will swap with the archer tower towards the back, and an air def maxing (1 air def, 3 archer towers, and 3 tessla, are yet to be maxed out but will be soon).
On the raiding front, I've had no problem financing at least two huge pekka/wiz/etc raids per day, usually for revenge to get big trophies, and otherwise I'm working on perfecting my skills in selecting bases I can raid for at least 1-star and some resources using just giants archers and minions, which is generally going pretty well although as I get over 2150 cups searches seem a bit longer (can vary wildly, though, so early days). Just last night I found I'd collected a million gold, when I was trying to keep it down around 200k (most of my raids, I avoid using spells, so I can raid every 20 minutes or so), and over the next couple of days I'm sure I can get enough elixer and gold for a couple more upgrades. I've also nearly got 30k DE, wich will go towards level 4 minions, or maybe I'll save for level 2 golem. Anyway, more proof that there's certainly enough resources in Crystal for a TH8, if you are patient in chosing what bases to raid...
