I'm starting to see results from other people testing compression and it seems that the data compression can really provide some nice benefits. I did minimal testing since I don't have any great, large databases and I'd have to create a load, which I didn't want to do. However some other MVPs have reported some nice time savings in queries, especially with COUNT().

However this is an Enterprise only feature, and I think part of the reason, along with the Resource Governer and Policy Management being limited to that edition, is that MS wants to try and get people to buy Enterprise. It's a huge revenue increase for them. My guess is that they see this as a way to increase revenue by converting people on the fence between the edtiions. After all, if they put everything in Standard (feature-wise), then why buy Enterprise?

 However I think on a few things they're missing the point. If you added these features to standard, then you are a much, much more attractive platform than Oracle or DB2 at that low price point. Dont' forget that many people have multiple servers and the licensing costs can add up. My vote is that you move "down" a couple features every version from Enterprise to Standard. I haven't seen anything move this time (memory limits went away in 2005 Standard), but I'm hopeful something will change.