I just found out recently that SQL Server 2008 R2 Service Pack 1 has been released. Microsoft KB article 2528583 lists all of the bugs that are fixed by the service pack. SQL Server MVP Aaron Bertrand blogged a few months back about the features that were added to the database engine. Hopefully, after installing this service pack on your test environment, you’d be able to try out those different features.

One more thing, in case you decide to do so, this service pack is only applicable to the R2 version of SQL Server 2008, not the RTM version. Every now and then, I see questions on newsgroups and forums about installing service packs and this has caused confusion to everyone (yes, including me). You have been warned.