I never did, no. Not in Ubuntu 9.04.
I’ve been running Karmic since August, and it does have new Intel drivers with better performance. I haven’t tested Panda3D specifically, but the graphical corruption in Blender is gone.
faust, you can already upgrade to the beta by running update-manager with the -d option.
I have tested Ubuntu 10.04 since Alpha 3 on a variety of laptops, all of which have integrated Intel graphics. It’s been a real mixed bag performance-wise.