2.8 seems to be stricter about modifiers above the Particle System modifier the usage of Use Modifier Stack here

without looking deeper at code, this sometimes makes more sense tbh:

generative modifiers:

• bevel, edgesplit (work in 2.8 with Use Modifier Stack, however in 2.8 disabling Use Modifier Stack makes particles disappear/grow from the origin, 2.79 worked without Use Modifier Stack)
• boolean (works in 2.8 with Use Modifier Stack, wasnt working at all in 2.79)
• array (works in both 2.79/2.8 with Use Modifier Stack, weird in both 2.79/2.8 without Use Modifier Stack, emits from orig faces, but also (partially) from new faces)
• remesh (works in both 2.79/2.8 with Use Modifier Stack, makes particles disappear/grow from the origin in both 2.79/2.8 without Use Modifier Stack)
• solidify (works in both 2.79/2.8 with Use Modifier Stack, weird in both 2.79/2.8 without Use Modifier Stack -- seems to flip normals on the original?)

deforming modifiers:

• from first glance these are all taken into account in both 2.79/2.8 no matter if Use Modifier Stack is ON or OFF...

So where does this leave us?

• given the fact that most of it seems fine in 2.8 with the option Use Modifier Stack enabled: maybe this should be ON by default?
• given the fact that having this disabled in 2.8 will certainly look like bugs in the case of this report (generally bevel, edgesplit, remesh, ...): should we make sure this is really just going after the non-modifier mesh (and nothing else)?
• the manual is really not of a help here (to me it reads like: OFF="no modifiers whatsoever" -- this is not the case...)
• @Jacques Lucke (JacquesLucke) : functions to the rescue ;)

Will assign to @Sergey Sharybin (sergey) (for guidance on how to proceed -- feel free to throw back at me and I will check code more thoroughly...)
CC @Brecht Van Lommel (brecht)