Perhaps your problem is not Alibre's?
From my own personal experience, the memory leak would go on and on until Alibre was using close to 750MB and would necessitate a restart.
Now, I've checked it for three days. When started, its around 200MB and at the end of the day without restarting the memory allocation was around 225MB! Not bad at all in my opinion.
As far as Alibre's improvements and whatnot, let's see, we have a totally new version due in January (seems to be well within the 18 month product cycle used by most in the CAD industry) and we've had three service packs and a point release that covered the following....
8.0 Service Pack 1 - December 2004
Important enhancements
* Direct import of Rhino 3DM files now supported
* Enhanced curve smoothness for sketch curves
* Improved interactions with models containing partial spherical surfaces (zoom level, rotation point locations, graphics display)
Usability Improvements
* Easier selection of the current field inside Edit Text Fields and Fill In Text dialogs --use arrow up/down to select tag field; use the Tab key to move to the text entry box
* Easier insertion of dimensions involving two sketch figures (dimension text no longer obscures the second selection)
* Measurement Tool improvements: click Work Area to clear all selected items in list
* Remove items from list boxes using the Delete key
Drawing Improvements and Fixes
* Drawing dimensions dissociated from model geometry are now moved to layer named "DISSOCIATED" and displayed in red
* Improved performance while projecting views in 2D drawings (fix for projecting bounded curves to plane)
* Improved cosmetic thread representations for patterned and mirrored holes
* Corrected Between Points values in feature control frame annotation upon reopening drawings
* Corrected drawing annotation default font size specification for new annotations
* Drawings created in older versions of Alibre Design now print with the correct border line thickness
Updated Add-ons now available
* ALGOR DesignCheck add-on for Alibre Design Professional and Expert
* SprutCAM 4.0 add-on for Alibre Design Expert
8.2 Released - May 2005
* 5x performance improvement for parts and assemblies
* User interface improvements for common tasks including a toolbar for controlling the visibility of reference geometry, markup and sketches
Display Enhancements
* Support for gradient backgrounds
* Improved line anti-aliasing
* Fully customizable color schemes
* Customizable edge color independent of face color
* Display acceleration options for faster view manipulation
* Option to suppress the display of silhouette edges in wireframe mode
* Option to show constraint symbols in a larger size
Drawing Enhancements
* Share drawings for print and markup without sharing the 3D model
* Option to not re-project drawing on open
* Support for new drawing view type: Partial
* Create Partial & Detail views using multiple figures for more complex boundaries (e.g. rectangles, half-circles)
* Create aligned Auxiliary views from sketch lines
Additional Improvements
* Store commonly used hole feature settings as catalog features
* New editable Material Density table
* Support for creation of ISO-style simplified threads (¾ Circle hole simplified thread indicator)
* New Show Constituents tool for files stored in the Windows file system: locate parts and assemblies used in assembly and drawings files
* Option to insert a Desktop or Quick Launch toolbar icon upon installation
* Support for the insertion of a plane at the end of a spline
* Double-click part, assembly or drawing file in Windows file system to open file in Alibre Design
8.2 Service Pack 1 - August 2005
Alibre Design 8.2 SP1 includes a number of fixes, complete details will be available in the ReadMe.txt file in the application and on the Alibre web site in the Support area.
That's all I have. It appears to be a bug fix service pack which makes sense after the transitions to DirectX 9.0c in 8.2
8.2 Service Pack 2 - November 2005
Licensing
Effective for all versions of Alibre Design, the licensing policy has been revised in Version 8.2 Service Pack 2 to streamline the installation process. All installations will default to Alibre Design Xpress until such time the user enters the required license key to enable their purchased product version, i.e. Basic, Standard, Professional, Expert.
Other Improvements
* Internet connection is no longer required
* No advertising pane in Alibre Design Xpress workspaces
* Improved memory resource management
* Upgrades for ALGOR DesignCheck, Machinist Toolbox and SprutCAM Add-Ons for Alibre Design Professional and Alibre Design Expert
* Enhanced support for 3DdConnexion motion controllers driver
That seems like a lot of good stuff and improvements over the last version cycle. Alibre could have held off on this service pack and just rolled it out with v9, but they chose to do it now and I applaud them for it.
As with anything, though, this is merely my opinion.
Jim