Has anyone tried using the new version of Blender 3D for creating and printing yet?
Yes. I love it. It has a steep learning curve but has been well worth it for me.
A couple of things for printing: I start designing a part following blender best practices around topology (sticking with quads) so that the powerful tools in blender work. And when the model is finished, I convert it to all triangles and then export an .stl.