That's interesting. With SQL on-box, SQL should expand to use what memory is available. If you see no memory load, that's the opposite of what I would expect.
What are you navigating to? For example, Manage > All Resources would be intensive, while Manage > Computers would not.
SMP is also very I/O dependent. Are you using 10k disks? 15k? What RAID arrangement (it's very write-heavy)? Realize that although this is just an evaluation environment, the amount of RAM is still a little low considering SQL is on the same box.
Can you define "awhile" in terms of seconds and indicate which page you're using?