I'm pleased to see that VS2012's Designer is much closer to Blend than the old one. One thing I still didn't find is Blend's "resource view":
VS2012 has something it calls resource view, but that is something different.
Without this, one can't reach templates other than by clicking through controls that use them.
OK. I did some research and found this preview. This is a stopgap until Update 2 released back in August. I haven't tried it yet. I'll edit my answer when I do. It seems that Update 2 of Visual Studio 2012 will include Blend support for Silverlight and WPF.
Here is more information on the preview Update 2. This is what I get for switching to a Microsoft product too early. Hope this helps.
If anyone has any more information on this. Please let us know.
Edits:
The preview is basically a preview of Blend that will eventually expire.
The biggest thing I'm not clear on is whether this statement (from this KB article):
"Blend for Visual Studio 2012 Support for Sketchflow, WPF, and Silverlight"
... means that Support for WPF and Silverlight will exist in Visual Studio itself or in another product.