If indeed Season 8 plans to barrel through conflict for all major factions, it might make sense to keep self-contained episodes to a minimum.
There remains the question of whether The Walking Dead Season 8 will shut down production over the looming Writers Strike, but in the meantime, stay tuned for details of the coming 100th episode.
So, yeah, things are going to move, and possibly not have the kind of deep dives into characters in single episodes, but rather laying out the pieces as we go on.