As a professional myself, I can say with 100% experience (currently using a 8GB mac pro) that 8GB is NOT enough and I get memory warnings about once every week that causes me to have to shut down a bunch of programs and slow open them back up as needed. But at the same time, I also think given that the 8gb mac pros are only using standard M(x) silicon I think the better answer would be to just not sell standard silicon as "pro" machines.
And if you look at the pricing between an air and a pro (15" vs 14", both 512 mem, both M3 8/10/8 silicon) the price difference is only $100. The machines are very close in capability; so really the 14" mac pro is little more than a rebranded air. This difference was harder to tell pre Apple silicon as it was easier to have different CPU/GPU/etc between the air and pro to give more of an actual difference. Of course if they did do that then the "base" level price for a "pro" would be $1,999 and not look near as nice as the current $1,599.
Ultimately with the advent of apple silicon apple really should just have a single macbook line and let the silicon be the actual air/pro/etc dividing factor. But I'm sure people would have plenty to complain about if they did that and apple themselves put themselves in this position by starting the whole "pro" vs "pleb" marketing in the first place.
The real crime that apple should be held for is the base level of storage their devices have across all of their devices (Phones, computers, iPads).