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I know this is a seriously faulty method, but my Poker Tracker database tells me that at the limits I play 57% of the players lose money and 43% have won.

Of course this is a small sample at one specific limit. I don't think it is possible to single out a specific player with a couple of thousand hands and identify them as a long term winner or loser, but it does give you an idea of the distribution.

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That's roughly what my Poker Tracker database shows too, but like you said, that's a very flawed way to estimate the number of profitable players for a few reasons.

The vast majority of players in anyone's database probably have fewer than 500 hands recorded. With that kind of sample size, even the best players in the world could show up as losers and the worst players could show up as winners. What you'll see with sample sizes that small is basically a random distribution with approximately 50% winners and 50% losers (actually slightly more losers due to the rake). With such a small sample, the winners and losers are determined almost entirely by luck.

For those players that you do have a statistically significant sample for, you're going to see an inflated percentage of winners simply because the winning players are the ones that stick around long enough for you to accumulate that sample size. The losers generally either move down or bust out entirely before you can get a significant sample.

Overall, I don't see any reason to disagree with the 7-8% numbers that were reported by a couple of online sites.