Yesterday Jakob from Vimeo commented on my rant about Flash 8
He explained their reasons for using Flash 8 on the site, which I was unaware of 
. On an email I sent to Vimeo, He also replied telling me that even If I can’t watch the videos online, you can still download them to watch offline
If you click the “download” link under a video, you should be able to get the original version.
More info here: http://www.vimeo.com/guide:user#5
Jakob