The learning curve will be steep, but I must admit this is the first time Microsoft has involved developers from ISVs from all over the world in beta testing and design input of any product (so they said !!)

I was on the Ascend Phase 1 training program (Developmentor run) in in Germany in Jan of this year and Yukon will be a mjor change, but it's a major change for the better and I really don't think it could be done in stages. Saying this the new veriosn of Reporting Services was available as a stand alone beta called Rosetta. It's now part of Yukon.

If I was a database developer or DBA I'd spend the next year learning C# and .Net and becoming more familiar with XML. TSQL will still be the language of choice for set based querying but I think C# will become more prevalant as it's a much richer environment to work in.