[BUGFIX beta] IE8 fixes for beta

6 failures left to go. Everything major seems to be locked down, though this also requires that https://github.com/tildeio/htmlbars/pull/91 be merged and the dependency in Ember be updated.

* [ ] Update the dependency to HTMLBars
* [ ] Triage the final 6 failure with @rwjblue, fix anything remaining

Review of this and the HTMLBars PR very welcome.
This is a hack, createElement is public and we support calling it without a contextual element. Seems to only be used in tests. Can improve.