Boomtap
Here`s a free piece of software that just may be able to give you a taste of RAW.
Its very basic, Hue saturation contrast and sharpening are just a few of the action`s you can use before saving to the file type you want. I did not read all the post here yet but does your camera give you the option of saving in RAW and JPEG ? If it does then you could make some good comparison`s.
http://www.faststone.org/FSViewerDetail.htm