I clone in plugs all the time, it's my preferred method. I know you already took them out. I would honestly say that 8 hours was not much time for recovery with the size of those clones. When I cut clones they don't still have side branches and whole fan leaves to try to support, that's a lot of veg material.
You definitely would want them under a dome, moist plugs but not soaked, I always spray the some the first few days to keep humidity up. Basic cloning stuff really, but definitely different then hydro cloning so I get it.
I could never get the results I wanted when I tried hydro cloning. But I was using a DIY setup so maybe I'd have better results if I tried it again in the future with different equipment.