Boyfromcork,
Technially there is nothing broken here. With the way that RBAC works and the desire to not turn functionality on for people that don't currently have it on, this is operating as designed.
Yes ... the experience could be better I won't argue with that, and we will see what we can do for SP1 but for now it is actually operting very well given the design of RBAC.
Iamme,
We can't remove the old role. It is one of the default roles in RBAC and cannot be deleted. The old role is not applying because we didn't create a role assignment for it. As long as the "My Distribution Groups" box is unchecked in the ECP there is no role assignment linking the Default Role (old role) and the Default Policy.
I recommend that you read my post on RBAC and the Triangle of Power. I will clear up how RBAC works and will make this article make more sense.
http://msexchangeteam.com/archive/2009/11/16/453222.aspx
-Matt