Mike,
Even if it were to work like that, there would most likely be an issue that also hampers KVM/Xen; Apparently the 8.x simulator requires certain device ID's that only VMWare gives in a (to the simulator) recognizable form.
Personally I haven't even gotten past getting 8.x to boot on a KVM virtual machine as the simulator uses a multi-image VMWare install and don't have a clue how to convert this into something KVM understands.
-Fred