They are largely useless, but they do double-check a few things that could be useful for new implementations. (and quite a few of them are duplicated, but I don't feel like looking into which ones).
Now with data-driven transaction tests which consist of a list of inputs, and a serialized transaction. Again, the data-driven transaction tests are more targeted at alternative implementations than the reference client.
Also pulled in a commit to make test_bitcoin useful when it fails (otherwise you have no idea why it failed, it just says failed and you have to scroll back through a ton of crap to find it).