Kinlin's often have a lot of metal shavings when new. Pick the bits out of your pads and see if you're still picking up new bits. I don't think that it was a pad problem, but it might now be a pad problem if you can't get all the shavings out of the pads. It's like washing your hair the first time after a haircut, once all the shavings are out you should be ok.

Pads from '08 (whether they're new or not) might not have the best performance, but they shouldn't cause a gross change to the amount of shaving coming off your rim.