With the SEM world Ever-changing, what are some of the newest / most creative Google AdWords tactics, strategies being applied / tested these days?

Test, test and learn. This is similar to split and multivariate testing. For that reason Google allows you to create many ads within an ad group, allowing them to decide which one is relevant to show to the searchers. This way, from those ads created, you are able to pick the one with many conversions and push it further with more spend