Alfine 11 can get in the sea and my experience of a recent 8 speed hubs was poor too. I’ve had Alfine and Nexus eights in the past and they’ve been really amazing, picked up second hand on eBay, given little to no maintenance and lasted years but last year I bought a brand new Cube with a Nexus 8 and within 6 months it had started skipping to the point of being unusable.

The Brompton geared hubs are Sturmeys and while Sturmey’s rep may be suffering due to the abysmal 5 speed, their 3 speed hubs are (imo) unrivalled.
To clarify, SA hubs I love, I done many thousands of miles on them. But the non standard rear end is stupid. You and I are not going to agree so lets agree to differ.
 
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