Active Directory in Windows 2008 R2: all the features we wanted last time

We’re starting our plan for upgrading our Domain Controllers to Win2008.  A few cool features are snapshots of AD (may replace our lag sites if we can figure out how to use snapshots for item recovery) and local admins of the DC’s don’t have to be domain admins.  Our GPO replication also leaves legacy FRS technology for DFSR.  Lots of other little things are improved, but that's the big stuff.

Honestly 2008 wasn’t that exciting for us AD fans.  No recycle bin, no PowerShell support, same old MMC w/o quick search, no native “web services” for AD… But it looks like they plan to take care of ALL that and more in Win2008 R2 (RTM 2010):

• Whole new PowerShell-based GUI console
• 85 PowerShell command-lets (CMDlets) for AD/LDS
• PowerShell will use AD Web Services and WCF
• Some of this stuff won't work in Server Core (I've written off Core as a 1.0 product that should be avoided in 98% of cases.  Eventually I think Core will just be Server w/o any added features.)
• Optional recycle bin (likely the most highly requested feature of AD in it's 10 year life)
• New object type for service accounts (no password policy, no interactive logon)
• Offline domain join
• Built-in Best Practice Analyzer (love the Exchange, ISA, and SQL BPA's)