Same Crap. The only thing I see upgraded for that is guitar tabletures. They really focused on Guitar players for this upgrade (as far as extras were concerned).
The performance and being able to bounce multi-timbral tracks are nice. So is the imrpoved stability (so far). I also like being able to completely import my channel/track settings from another project. I haven't tried using varispeed yet but that could be extremely helpful for live recording really tough parts. That let's you slow down or speed up the entire mix temporarily while you record in a live performance. Might be good for those super tough passages and give you time to wiggle all your controllers.
For what it's worth, the score looks prettier, but the functionality seems completely the same. I am comparing the two manuals (8 and 9) at the moment to see if there really is any improvements. They definitely didn't post any improvements to it.