Financially, you're almost always better off taking more cash and less stock. In the average startup, things do not go well, so a raise in 8 months may not really be in the cards (and if things are going well, your equity will be worth much more than your salary anyway).
But there are intangible benefits to taking more equity and less salary. You work harder, which means that you get to work on more interesting things, which opens up more doors in the future. If I were to take a job now (and I'm looking :-)), I'd probably go for more equity and a lower salary as long as it's adequate to cover basic living costs, if only because there're only so many material comforts that one needs...
At one point, I had something like 10K Linuxcare options, when VA Linux and Redhat had recently had huge IPO's and were trading well north of $100. Sigh...
It's not something I think about much though. I was paid well and got a lot of other things out of the experience. However...yeah, it's pretty easy for things to turn sour in a hurry.
But there are intangible benefits to taking more equity and less salary. You work harder, which means that you get to work on more interesting things, which opens up more doors in the future. If I were to take a job now (and I'm looking :-)), I'd probably go for more equity and a lower salary as long as it's adequate to cover basic living costs, if only because there're only so many material comforts that one needs...