I might be wrong here, but here goes.
High aces and PP are great hands late because they own percentage games preflop, especially high aces.
While A8o is a terrible hand in a full game that has low blinds, the higher the blinds become, it becomes much better in a high blind game, especially when you can eliminate postflop play.
A8o sucks because you're not going to make money when you flop a decent hand with it (top pair, lousy kicker), you only get beat with it. However, before the flop, it is a favorite to most hands, and only a big dog to a few. This is mostly because you actually win the hands when you don't improve but your opponent doesn't either.
AXs is better than AX because of implied odds. In the late stages of a tournament, there is no such thing as implied odds.
this thread is very, very useful when making preflop all-in decisions. I generally have it open on my MTTs.
You notice that suited connectors and AXs, the two types of hands reliant on implied odds go way down, while AXo, which has no implied odds whatsoever, gets quite a big boost from normal ring game play.