SharePoint Development get easy!
One of the major feedback from the development community was about the complexity of setting up development environment.
Microsoft Listened!
Now you would not need a Windows Server 2008 box to be able to develop applications for SharePoint with Visual Studio 2010. SharePoint Server Foundation (previously known as Windows SharePoint Services or WSS) on Windows 7 & Vista. Sorry XP guys :)
One constraint though, it has to be a x64 OS and you need to go through series of pre defined steps to enable these.
Visual Studio 2010 & SharePoint 2010 are good partner for sure.