There's probably something to be gained from parallel query processing. I seem to recall that 2008 resolves some issues related to parallel query processing and partitions that were problematic in 2005.

However, performance for us was not the driving factor for partitioning the tables. I have had some very painful experiences dealing with poorly thought out purge strategies that kill performance, explode transaction logs and otherwise make a general mess of things. My primary goal was to create a fast, extensible process to purge lots of data very quickly each month with minimal impact to other processes.

Regards,

Hugh Scott