The free software was worth the effort.
OK, I forgot to mention that I went to the Heroes Happen Here seminar. I registered for both the IT Pro and the developer track. Of course, when I registered online, the dev track was full, so I registered for IT pro. When I got there, some dev track entries opened up, so I was there ALL day. Worth it? Sorta.
The free software was worth the effort. At the time, I was using the Enterprise editon of VC++ 6.0 and the Standard edition of VS 2005 (...paid for it myself). In the software packet, we received a fully-functional Standard edition of VS2008.
I have upgraded all of my managed projects to 2008 and still have not touched any of the other software (full or trial):
- Windows Server 2008 32 & 64 bit (1-year Trial)
- Visual Studio 2008 (using this now)
- SQL Server 2008 Developer 32 & 64 bit
- Windows Vista Ultimate
- Windows Live One Care (Trial)
- Windows Mobile 6 Developer Resource Kit (Trial)
The keynote was recorded -- I don't particularly mind that, but the sessions were more of a sales job than instruction. I do wish there had been some seriously geeky sessions with folks building more demo code (there was SOME).
Also, the cute little breakfast/lunch box (with Microsoft logo) was a great addition. I do wish they had some Microsoft shirts for sale (no smalls or mediums needed) 
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After the seminar, I went to the Kansas City .NET Users Group meeting to round out the day.