Sometime ago I have blogged about MSDN labs- SQL Server Virtual Labs - fully featured virtual environment for testing! and I recommend and encourage all of my users to use Virtual labs and webcasts - use them for a better practice on product . Similar to this fashion recently I have been using the labs...
Do you have any criteria for your Development Environment within the SQL Server platform? Do you perform end-to-end testing whenever a new hotfix or service pack needs to be applied on the SQL Server? So think about having seperate Database Development environment where it is like to like with Production...