Sooner or later, those of us who choose to remain in the .NET world are going to have to move on towards the 3.x Framework technologies. With WPF's crazily awesome looking demos, WCF/WF's applicability to business process workflows, "data access works 'good enough' as is", lack of time, etc. some items such LINQ may easily fall through the cracks to the bottom of the update-my-skills priority list.

Regardless of whether or not you find a need to delve into the world of LINQ, it can't hurt to check out LINQPad. No hard sell, just get in and get out - I promise you won't get hurt either way.