Visual Studio 2005 Express Editions will be free! (sort of)
Microsoft has announced that the Express Editions of Visual Studio 2005 will not be $49, but instead will be free, if you download it before next November. This can be seen on an MSDN blog posting, and it includes no-registration-needed ISO downloads.
Also, there are already statements about when SP1 for VS 2003 and VS 2005 will be available, which is to say, surprisingly soon.