There's plenty of ways to do the split (or indeed) thing for example a nice CTE way:

http://ole.michelsen.dk/blog/split-string-to-table-using-transact-sql/

Looking at your experience I'm guessing you did know that 😉 but think a built in way would be preferable. The only thing I might say is that the nuances of what you might want to do often vary for such tasks so maybe rolling your own is preferable? To me there may be better candidates for a renewal, I like the cut of Phil's jib on this one.

I really hate the search-y functions in SQL though - I know they are powerful and indeed flexible, but somehow still absolute pony IMHO.