Finished Higurashi 5-8. Overall I would say it was a great read. You see some big changes when you go from 1-4 to 5-8. One of the first things is the music. There are plenty of good tracks in 5-8 that fit with the atmosphere, which you can't EXACTLY say about 1-4. The answer arcs overall were really good. 1-4 was good at setting up the mystery and presenting a perspective, but 5-8 does a great job on honing in those arcs and presenting answers. Occasionally some pacing issues, but it wasn't a big problem as there are lots of memorable scenes scattered throughout the VN. Overall I would say it's a 9/10 for me.
[spoiler=higurashi arc8] http://puu.sh/5gO9u. I would say Hanyuu definitely deserved that ending. The theme of friendship was definitely strong. Instead of keeping secrets and being paranoid, working together to defeat or achieving a goal was definitely important during the journey.
Grisaia... then Higurashi.. I would say I'm done with longer VNs for a while now. Kind of burned out, but that isn't because of the quality of the story or anything.