It is possible to write ACPI scripts to read the CPU temperature, even when other tools don't work. Of course it is required to know the register address, which isn't that easy...
I don't know which other features are new.
On some notebooks it has been reported to cause lags, deactivation of SMART should solve this.
On notebooks Mx43x it causes lags. The notebook freezes every time NHC or any other tool checks SMART. So you cannot use NHC or you have to deactivate it (which doesn't really work as far as I know).