Bigger blocks will mean more transactions per block and more overall fees while keeping transaction fees low. This is the preferred way for miners to achieve greater overall fees which will help Bitcoin remain competitive whilst continuing to grow. Creating artificial demand is not a good idea for the same reason...
The more bitcoin sitting in blocks awaiting confirmation the higher bitcoin's price will go. This means that minimum transaction fees will also keep going up. So both minimum transaction fees as well as the number of fees will be going up. Miners should therefore not be concerned about bigger block sizes.
Leaving the block size limit the same will lead to greater change than increasing the limit - once the limit is reached. Breaching the limit will not lead to a smooth transition but rather lead to panic and further stress on the network. In contrast increasing the limit will have no short or medium term effect. Once the previous 1MB limit is reached it will be business as usual as transactions continue to grow past the limit. The purpose of the 8MB limit, even if not required in the short term, is to prevent denial of service by attacks or "tests" which already approached the 1MB limit.
Once the 8 MB limit is in place there will be breathing room to look at other technologies, none of which are ready for prime time.