Is it just me or is there more pedal noise in 8.2?

Yes, I remember taking part in a discussion about it some time ago. I welcome it, because it's more authentic. Also there seems to be more sympathetic resonance when holding down keys. I like that too!

You can reduce the "Pedal noise" in the Action panel. Or do not press down the sustain pedal too fast, if your pedal sends at least two different position values (which you ca see in the Velocity panel, having selected PEDAL in the menu).

This new level of realism with the pedal is very interesting, definitely a step in the right direction.

I noticed this immediately using my Kawai pedal (a decent continuous pedal, but not the best "resolution"). If you're using a cheap off/on switch pedal, the results are really not going to be pretty. I tried that too. With my Kawai pedal, I noticed the "thump" was far too easy to trigger compared with a real piano. I suspected the pedal's mediocre resolution was the problem. I just tried again with a much better Roland pedal, and indeed, the response is much better. Although, the "thump" still engages too easily even with this pedal, so perhaps it would make sense to adjust the curve a bit under the hood?

THE PERFECT MIDI PEDAL?----------

Of course this really isn't a Pianoteq problem though. I think it's a MIDI pedal problem. MIDI pedals--even these Roland pedals--just don't put out the same resolution as a good MIDI expression pedal. As far as I know, no one makes a MIDI pedal that can output all 127 values. If pedals like that were common, Pianoteq could easily tune the pedal response to that high standard, with an even more extreme "thump" than in 8.2. My knowledge of MIDI is limited, but I suspect there might also be a limitation in the MIDI protocol itself that would limit the resolution of a really fast "pedal stomp" with a theoretically perfect MIDI pedal. That MIDI resolution is refereed to as "ticks," right? Perhaps this is where MIDI 2.0 could be really useful??

Even with all of that solved, MIDI pedals have one other flaw. They activate roughly 1/3 of the way down and hit their maximum value roughly 2/3 of the way down. That might seem logical since real piano dampers don't actually lift from the strings until somewhere in that 1/3 down region, and the dampers completely clear the strings well before the pedal bottoms out. However, to really emulate the "thump" of a rapid "pedal down," value-127 shouldn't trigger until the pedal bottoms out. So 126 would trigger roughly 2/3 of the way down, then the pedal would travel all the way to the bottom and finally trigger 127. Likewise, a rapid "pedal up" sound could be modeled. But again, value-0 would need to be triggered at the very top position of the pedal, and then value-1 should trigger roughly 1/3 of the way down). Or using MIDI 2.0 there might be plenty of resolution to make it perfectly continuous from the very top to the very bottom, and the response could be completely up to the software. Likely easier and more ideal.

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If such a MIDI pedal existed, I THINK Pianoteq could be made to really emulate all the drama and subtlety that an acoustic piano's damper pedal provides.

As a side note, most piano students still learning to master pedaling often struggle most with the "pedal up." Once they've gotten the hang of "repedaling" (aka legato pedaling or syncopated pedaling), they will often let the pedal up too far--even taking their foot off the pedal--resulting in a thud as the dampers hit the strings. It's particularly bad if they're also lifting the pedal too quickly. Of course this thud can be used to great effect, as I've written about before here...

Yes, I have a Roland pedal, and it's quite easy to sound as if I'm stomping on it! I'll try tweaking the pedal response curve as Nathan suggests.