Does anyone have a decent aftermarket calendar package for an 8700g, not that I am necessarily unhappy with the preinstalled stuff but I am always wanting something to compare with.

Try PocketDay...www.crossriversystems.com

Use PocketDay, it is a great product!

Yep. I think that the PocketDay Month view is superb. You scroll along from day to day and your appointments appear at the bottom of the screen.
You can customise it to open at the Month view. Then pushing the V key (i.e. View) will take you to your Summary page with all the good stuff like Weather and Stocks...
FYI PocketDay gives you a fully functioning 30 day trial.

I gave it a try but it does not do what I need. I would like a summary of all appointments for the next week on the today page. It allows you set tasks to be displayed that way and has a setting to set the number of days. But for appointments it does not.

Is there a similar program that might do that?