Sorry I'm late to this party, but was curious if AA/AF really doesn't work in CMBB with ATI Catalysts? Was waiting for the 256MB version of the 9800 Pro before upgrading.
WRT Nvidia drivers not working with other games, there's plenty of anecdotal and empirical evidence about AA and texturing implementations not working in versions newer than 30.87. I haven't been able to get decent performance out of any driver rev newer than 30.82 (using an Albatron Ti4200 TURBO, overclocked to Ti4600 speed on a rig with a P4 1.8GHz oc'd to 2.65GHz, 512MB and WinXP Pro). NOLF2, Splinter Cell, WarBirds, Age of Wonders II, Morrowind--they all exhibited moderate to severe problems directly attributed to newer Nvidia drivers.
Considering the problems with other developers, it's hard to see how this is a BFC issue when it's so clearly an Nvidia issue. It's also part of the reason why my next card will be an ATI after using Nvidia cards for so many years.