Gux over at sqljunkies has a link about using a hosted service to try some hands on labs with Visual Studio. If you want to try out some new products, you can log on and give them a test drive without having to install the software or get a VPC image with it.
A client of ours is trying out BizTalk Server this way, and he said it's been a great experience. I'll have to give these a whirl someday.