This will be my last post until there's further activity on this thread or I've completed my project.
I found a program that will make it so that image edits of the newer releases for 8FC are possible
http://www.angusj.com/resourcehacker/Resource Hacker allows you to open an exe file and look at pretty much everything in it via a very easy to use GUI. On top of that, it allows you to export certain resources. I was able to open up the latest release of Rockman 8 FC and export the image resources as bmp files. You can name it whatever you want when you export the file, just make sure you don't save as a Resource file, but as a bmp file. You can edit this in MSpaint classic or gimp or Photoshop, whichever program you prefer that will work within the color pallets/tables. I always recommend Photoshop because you can change the color pallets/tables if you want. Finally, save the file over, then go back into Resource Hacker, right click on the original file, and hit replace.
Things to note: They've changed the character sprites so they only have one direction face in the sprite sheets, which means half the work. But that also means walking back and forth is just an image flip, so no asymmetrical characters here. Another thing to note, they have changed background colors on some of the sprite sheets, so be aware of that if you're just going to copy and paste over from older sheets. Finally, in some image files, you'll notice there's a sort of greying out styling that repeats down the image. You can use FC Image Creator to replicate this, which can be found in Beta 2.89 and earlier.
Resource Hacker also lets you file icons, but I've had mixed results with this. Then again, I am running Windows 7, which may treat icons differently from XP. I'll put the files on an XP computer and see if this changes anything.